'(!•.■ 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 


^^a^mVu. 


Annuls  <t  rf-*€nttt 


ESSAYS    OF    ELIA. 


BY 


CHARLES    LAMB. 


A     NEW     EDITION. 


NEW     YORK: 

W.  J.   WIDDLETON,    PUBLISHER. 

1878. 


I 


Cambridge : 
Pressiiwk  l<v  John    Wihon   &>  Son. 


LIBRARY 

T\  UNIVERSITY  OF  .-^ALIFORNIA 

<^i)  SANTA  BARBARA 


CONTENTS. 


ELIA. 

PAOE 

the  south-sea  house 9 

oxford  ix  the  vacatiox 19 

Christ's  hospital  five-and-thirty  years  ago      .     .  27 

the  two  races  of  men 44 

new-year's  eve 51 

MRS.    battle's    opinions    ON   WHIST GO 

A   CHAPTER   ON   EARS 69 

ALL  fools'   day 75 

A   QUAKERS'    MEETING 80 

THE    OLD    AND    THE    NEW    SCHOOLMASTER 86 

IMPERFECT    SYMPATHIES 98 

WITCHES,    AND    OTHER    NIGHT    FEARS 108 

valentine's    DAY 117 

MY   RELATIONS 121 

MACKERY   END,    IN    HERTFORDSHIRE 129 

MY    FIRST    PLAY 136 

MODERN   GALLANTRY        142 

THE   OLD   BENCHERS    OF    THE    INNER   TEMPLE        ....  147 


VI  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

grace  before  meat 162 

dream-children;  a  revery 171 

distant  correspondents 176 

the  praise  of  chimney-sweepers 184: 

a  complaint  of  the  decay  of  beggars  in  the  me- 
tropolis      193 

a  dissertation  upon  roast  pig 203 

A   bachelor's    COMPLAINT    OF    THE    BEHAVIOR    OF    MAR- 
RIED   PEOPLE 212 

ON   SOME   OF    THE    OLD    ACTORS 221 

ON   THE   ARTIFICIAL    COMEDY   OF    THE    LAST    CENTURY      .  237 

ON   THE    ACTING    OF    MUNDEN 217 


THE   LAST   ESSAYS   OF  ELIA. 


BLAKESMOOR  in  II SIIIKE 257 

POOR   RELATIONS 264 

DETACHED    THOUGHTS    ON    BOOKS    AND    READING       .       .       .  273 

STAGE   ILLUSION 281 

TO    THE   SHADE    OF    ELLISTON 285 

ELLISTONIANA 280 

THE   OLD   MARGATE    HOY 296 

THE   CONVALESCENT 306 

SANITY  OF   TRUE   GENIUS 312 

CAPTAIN   JACKSON 316 


CONTENTS.  Vll 

PACE 

THE    SUPERANNUATED   MAN 322 

THE    GENTEEL   STYLE    IN   WRITING 331 

BARBARA    S 337 

THE    TOMBS    IN    THE    ABBEY 344 

AMICUS    REDIVIVUS 348 

SOME    SONNETS    OF    SIR   PHILIP   SYDNEY 354 

NEWSPAPERS    THIRTY-FIVE   YEARS   AGO 363 

BARRENNESS     OF     THE     IMAGINATIVE     FACULTY     IN     THE 

PRODUCTIONS    OF   MODERN    ART 373 

THE   WEDDING 388 

REJOICINGS    UPON    THE   NICW   YEAR'S   COMING    OF    AGE        .  395 

OLD    CHINA 402 

THE   CHILD- angel;   A    DREAM 410 

CONFESSIONS   OF    A    DRUNKARD 414 


Popular  Fallacies  — 

i,  that  a  bully  is  always  a  coward      ....  425 

ii.  that  ill-gotten  gain  never  prospers      .     .     .  426 

iii.  that  a  man  must  not  laugh  at  his  own  jest  427 
iv.  that  such  a  one  shows   his  breeding — that 

it  is  easy  to  perceive  he  is  no  gentleman  427 

v.  that  the  poor  copy  the  vices  of  the  rich    .  428 

vi.  that  enough  is  as  good  as  a  feast  ....  430 
vii.  of  two  disputants  the  warmest  is  generally 

in  the  wrong 431 

vui.  that  verbal  allusions  are  not  wit,   because 

they  will  not  bear  a  translation       .     .     .  433 

ix.  that  the  worst  puns  are  the  best     ....  433 


VIU  CONTENTS. 

Popular  Fallacies  —  (Continued^ 

^                               '  PAGE 

X.    THAT   HANDSOME    IS    THAT    HANDSOME    DOES    .       .       .  436 
XI.    THAT    WE    MUST    NOT    LOOK    A    GIFT-HORSE     IN     THE 

MOUTH 439 

XII.    THAT    HOME    IS     HOME,    THOUGH     IT     IS     NEVER     SO 

HOMELY 442 

XIII.  THAT   YOU   MUST    LOVE    ME    AND    LOVE    MY    DOG        .  448 

XIV.  THAT    WE    SHOULD    RISE   WITH    THE    LARK   ....  452 
XV.    THAT    WE    SHOULD    LIE    DOWN    WITH    THE    LAMB  .       .  455 

XVI.    THAT    A    SULKY    TEMPER    IS    A    MISFORTUNE     .       .       .  458 


E  L  I  A. 


THE    SOUTH-SEA    HOUSE. 

Re,\der,  in  thy  passage  from  the  Bank  —  where 
tliou  hast  been  receiving  thy  half-yearly  dividends 
(supposing  thou  art  a  lean  annuitant  like  myself)  — 
to  the  Flower  Pot,  to  secure  a  place  for  Dalston,  or 
Shacklewell,  or  some  other  thy  suburban  retreat  north- 
erly,—  didst  thou  never  observe  a  melancholy-looking, 
handsome,  brick  and  stone  edifice,  to  the  left  —  where 
Threadneedle-street  abuts  upon  Bishopsgate  ?  I  dare 
say  thou  hast  often  admired  its  magnificent  portals  ever 
gaping  wide,  and  disclosing  to  view  a  grave  court,  with 
cloisters,  and  pillars,  with  few  or  no  traces  of  goers- 
in  or  comers-out,  —  a  desolation  something  like  Bal- 
clutha's.* 

This  was  once  a  house  of  trade,  —  a  centre  of  busy 
interests.  The  throng  of  merchants  was  here  —  the 
quick  j)ulse  of  gain  —  and  here  some  forms  of  business 
are  still  kept  up,  though  the  soul  be  long  since  fied. 
Plere  are  still  to  be  seen  stately  porticos ;  imposing 
staircases,  offices  roomy  as  the  state  apartments  in 
palaces  —  deserted,  or  thinly  peopled  with  a  few  strag- 

•  I  passed  by  the  walls  of  Bulclutha,  and  tUey  were  diisojato. 

USSIAS. 


10  THE   SOUTH-SEA    HOUSE. 

gling  clerks  ;  tlie  still  more  sacred  interiors  of  court 
and  committee-rooms,  with  venerable  faces  of  beadles, 
door-keepers  —  directors  seated  in  forai  on  solemn  days 
(to  proclaim  a  dead  dividend),  at  long  worm-eaten 
tables,  that  have  been  mahogany,  with  tarnished  gilt- 
leather  coverings,  supporting  massy  silver  inkstands 
long  since  dry ;  —  the  oaken  wainscots  hung  with 
pictures  of  deceased  governors  and  sub-governors,  of 
Queen  Anne,  and  the  two  first  monarchs  of  the 
Brunswick  djniasty  ;  —  huge  charts,  Avhich  subsequent 
discoveries  have  antiquated ;  dusty  maps  of  Mexico, 
dim  as  dreams,  —  and  soundings  of  the  Bay  of  Panama ! 
The  long  passages  hung  with  buckets,  appended,  in 
idle  row,  to  walls,  whose  substance  might  defy  any, 
short  of  the  last,  conflagration  :  —  with  vast  ranges  of 
cellarage  mider  all,  where  dollars  and  ])ieces-of-eight 
once  lay,  an  "  unsunned  heap,"  for  Mammon  to  have 
solaced  his  solitary  heart  withal,  —  long  since  dissi- 
pated, or  scattered  into  air  at  the  blast  of  the  breaking 

of  that  famous  Bubble. 

Such  is  the  South-Sea  House.  At  least,  such  it 
was  forty  years  ago,  when  I  knew  it,  —  a  magnificent 
relic !  What  alterations  may  have  been  made  in  it 
since,  I  have  had  no  opportunities  of  verifying.  Time, 
I  take  for  granted,  has  not  freshened  it.  No  wind 
has  resuscitated  the  face  of  the  sleeping  waters.  A 
thicker  crust  by  this  time  stagnates  upon  it.  The 
moths  that  were  then  battening  upon  its  obsolete 
ledgers  and  daybooks,  have  rested  from  their  depre- 
dations, but  other  liiiht  generations  have  succeeded, 
makino;  fine  fretwork  amono;  their  sino;le  and  doid)le 
entries.  Layers  of  dust  have  accumulated  (a  super- 
foetation  of  dirt!)    upon   the   old    layers,   that  seldom 


THE   SOUTH-SEA   HOUSE.  11 

used  to  be  disturbed,  save  by  some  curious  finger,  now 
and  then,  inquisitive  to  explore  the  mode  of  bookkeep- 
ing in  Queen  Anne's  reign ;  or,  with  less  hallowed 
curiosity,  seeking  to  unveil  some  of  the  mysteries  of 
that  tremendous  hoax,  whose  extent  the  petty  pecula- 
tors of  our  day  look  back  upon  with  the  same  expres- 
sion of  incredulous  admiration,  and  hopeless  ambition 
of  rivaliy,  as  would  become  the  puny  face  of  modem 
conspiracy  contemplating  the  Titan  size  of  Vaux's 
superhuman  plot. 

Peace  to  the  manes  of  the  Bubble  !  Silence  and 
destitution  are  upon  thy  walls,  proud  house,  for  a  me- 
morial ! 

Situated  as  thou  art,  in  the  very  heart  of  stirring 
and  livuig  commerce,  —  amid  the  fret  and  fever  of 
speculation,  —  with  the  Bank,  and  the  'Change,  and 
the  India-House  about  thee,  in  the  heyday  of  present 
prosperity,  with  their  important  faces,  as  it  were,  in- 
sulting thee,  their  poor  neiglihor  out  of  business,  —  to 
the  idle  and  merely  contemplative,  —  to  such  as  me, 
old  house !  there  is  a  charm  in  thy  quiet :  —  a  cessa- 
tion —  a  coolness  from  business  —  an  indolence  almost 
cloistral  —  which  is  deliffhtfal !  With  what  reverence 
have  I  paced  thy  great  bare  rooms  and  courts  at  even- 
tide !  They  spoke  of  the  past :  —  the  shade  of  some 
dead  accountant,  with  visionary  pen  in  ear,  would  flit 
by  me,  stiff  as  in  life.  Living  accounts  and  account- 
ants puzzle  me.  I  have  no  skill  in  figuring.  But  thy 
great  dead  tomes,  which  scarce  three  degenerate  clerks 
of  the  present  day  could  lift  from  their  enshrining 
shelves  —  with  their  old  fantastic  flourishes,  and  dec- 
omtive  rubric  interlacings  —  their  sums  in  triple  col- 
uraniations,  set  down  with  formal  superfluity  of  cipher? 


l2  THE   SOUTH-SEA   HOUSE. 

—  with  pious  sentences  at  the  beginning,  without  wliich 
our  rehgious  ancestors  never  ventured  to  open  a  book 
of  business,  or  bill  of  lading  —  the  costly  vellum  covers 
of  some  of  them  almost  persuading  us  that  we  are 
got  into  some  better  lihrary^  —  are  very  agreeable  and 
edifying  sjiectacles.  I  can  look  upon  these  defunct 
dragons  with  complacency.  Thy  heavy,  odd-shaped, 
ivory-handled  penknives  (our  ancestors  had  every- 
thing on  a  larger  scale  than  we  have  hearts  for)  are  as 
good  as  anything  fi'om  Herculanemn.  The  pounce- 
boxes  of  our  days  have  gone  retrograde. 

The  very  clerks  which  I  remember  in  the  South-Sea 
House  —  I  speak  of  forty  years  back  —  had  an  air  very 
(different  from  those  in  the  public  offices  that  I  have 
had  to  do  with  since.  They  partook  of  the  genius  of 
the  ])lace  ! 

They  were  mostly  (for  the  establishment  did  not 
admit  of  superfluous  salaries)  bachelors.  Generally 
(for  they  had  not  much  to  do)  persons  of  a  curious 
and  speculative  turn  of  mind.  Old-fashioned,  for  a 
reason  mentioned  before.  Humorists,  for  they  were 
of  all  descriptions  ;  and,  not  having  been  brought  to- 
gether in  early  life  (which  has  a  tendency  to  assimi- 
late the  members  of  corporate  bodies  to  each  other), 
but,  for  the  most  part,  })laced  in  this  house  in  ripe  or 
middle  age,  they  necessarily  carried  into  it  their  sepa- 
rate habits  and  oddities,  unciualified,  if  I  may  so  speak, 
as  into  a  common  stock.  Hence  they  formed  a  sort  of 
Noah's  ark.  Odd  fishes.  A  lay-monastery.  Domestic 
retainers  in  a  great  liouse,  kept  more  for  show  than 
use.  Yet  pleasant  fellows,  full  of  chat,  —  and  not  a 
few  among  them  had  arrived  at  considerable  profi- 
ciency on  the  German  flute. 


THE   SOUTH-SEA  HOUSE.  13 

The  cashier  at  that  time  was  one  Evans,  a  Oambro- 
Briton.  He  had  something  of  the  choleric  complexion 
of  his  countrymen  stamped  on  his  visage,  but  was  a 
worthy  sensible  man  at  bottom.  He  wore  his  hair, 
to  the  last,  ])owdered  and  frizzed  out,  in  the  fashion 
which  I  remember  to  have  seen  in  caricatures  of  what 
were  termed,  in  my  young  days,  Maccaronies.  He 
was  the  last  of  that  race  of  beaux.  Melancholy  as  a 
gibcat,  over  his  counter  all  the  forenoon,  I  think  I  see 
him,  making  up  his  cash  (as  they  call  it)  with  tremu- 
lous fingers,  as  if  he  feared  every  one  about  him  was  a 
defaulter;  in  his  hypochondry  ready  to  imagine  him- 
self one  ;  haunted,  at  least,  with  the  idea  of  the  possi- 
bility of  his  becoming  one  ;  his  tristful  visage  clearing 
ap  a  little  over  his  roast  neck  of  veal  at  Anderton's  at 
two  (where  his  picture  still  hangs,  taken  a  little  before 
his  death  by  desire  of  the  master  of  the  coffee-house, 
which  he  had  frequented  for  the  last  five-and-twenty 
years,)  but  not  attainmg  the  meridian  of  its  animation 
till  evenino;  brought  on  the  hour  of  tea  and  visitino-. 
The  simultaneous  sound  of  his  well-known  rap  at  the 
door  with  the  stroke  of  the  clock  announcing  six,  was  a 
topic  of  never-failing  mirth  in  the  families  which  this 
dear  old  bachelor  gladdened  with  his  presence.  Then 
was  hh  forte,  his  glorified  houi'!  How  would  he  chirp, 
and  expand,  over  a  muffin  !  How  would  he  dilate  into 
secret  history.  His  countryman.  Pennant  himself,  in 
particular,  could  not  be  more  eloquent  than  he  in  rela- 
tion to  old  and  new  London  —  the  site  of  old  theatres, 
churches,  streets  gone  to  decay  —  where  Rosamond's 
Pond  stood  —  the  Mulberry-gardens  —  and  the  Con- 
duit in  Cheap  —  with  many  a  pleasant  anecdote,  de- 
rived from  paternal  tradition,  of  those  grotesque  figures 


14  THE   SOUTH-SEA  HOUSE. 

which  Hogarth  has  immortahzed  in  his  picture  of  Noon, 
—  the  worthy  descendants  of  those  lieroic  <!onfessors, 
who,  fl}^ng  to  this  country,  from  the  wrath  of  Louis 
the  Fourteenth  and  his  dragoons,  kept  ahve  tlie  flame 
of  pure  rehgion  in  the  sheltering  obscurities  of  Hog- 
lane,  and  the  \'icinity  of  the  Seven  Dials  ! 

Deputy,  under  Evans,  was  Thomas  Tame.  He  had 
the  air  and  stoop  of  a  nobleman.  You  would  have 
taken  him  for  one,  had  you  met  him  in  one  of  the 
passages  leading  to  Westminster-hall.  By  stoop,  I 
mean  that  gentle  bending  of  the  body  forwards,  which, 
in  great  men,  must  be  supposed  to  be  the  effect  of  an 
habitual  condescending  attention  to  the  applications  of 
their  inferiors.  While  he  held  you  in  converse,  you 
felt  strained  to  the  height  in  the  colloquy.  The  con- 
ference over,  you  were  at  leisure  to  smile  at  the  com- 
parative insignificance  of  the  pretensions  which  had 
just  awed  you.  His  intellect  was  of  the  shallowest 
order.  It  did  not  reach  to  a  saw  or  a  proverb.  His 
mind  was  in  its  original  state  of  white  paper.  A 
sucking-babe  might  have  posed  him.  What  was  it 
then  ?  Was  he  rich  ?  Alas,  no !  Thomas  Tame 
was  very  poor.  Both  he  and  his  wife  looked  out- 
wardly gentlefolks,  when  I  fear  all  was  not  well  at  sd) 
times  within.  She  had  a  neat  meagre  person,  which  if 
was  evident  she  had  not  sinned  in  over-pampering  ;  but 
in  its  veins  was  noble  blood.  She  traced  her  descent, 
by  some  labyrinth  of  relationship,  which  I  never  thor- 
oughly understood,  —  much  less  can  explain  with  any 
heraldic  certainty  at  this  time  of  day,  —  to  the  illus- 
trious, but  unfortunate  house  of  Derwentwater.  This 
was  the  secret  of  Thomas's  stoop.  This  was  the 
thought  —  the  sentiment  —  the  bright  solitaiy  star  of 


THE   SOUTH-SEA   HOUSE.  15 

70ur  lives, — ye  mild  and  happy  pair,  —  which  cheered 
you  in  the  night  of  intellect,  and  in  the  obscurity  of 
your  station  !  This  was  to  you  instead  of  riches,  in- 
stead of  rank,  instead  of  glittering  attainments  ;  and  it 
was  worth  them  all  tog-ether.  You  insulted  none  with 
it ;  but,  while  you  wore  it  as  a  piece  of  defensive 
armor  only,  no  insult  likewise  could  reach  you  through 
it.     Deeus  et  solamen. 

Of  quite  another  stamp  was  the  then  accountant, 
John  Tipp.  He  neither  pretended  to  high  blood,  nor, 
in  good  truth,  cared  one  fig  about  the  matter.  He 
"  thought  an  accountant  the  greatest  character  in  the 
world,  and  himself  the  greatest  accountant  in  it.'' 
Yet  John  was  not  without  his  hobby.  The  fiddle 
relieved  liis  vacant  hours.  He  sang,  certainly,  with 
other  notes  than  to  the  Orphean  lyre.  He  did,  in- 
deed, scream  and  scrape  most  abominably.  His  fine 
suite  of  official  rooms  in  Threadneedle-street,  which, 
without  anything  very  substantial  appended  to  them, 
were  enough  to  enlarge  a  man's  notions  of  himself  that 
lived  in  them,  (I  know  not  who  is  the  occupier  of  them 
uow,)  resounded  fortnightly  to  the  notes  of  a  concert 
of  "  sweet  breasts,"  as  om'  ancestors  would  have  called 
them,  culled  from  club-rooms  and  orchestras  —  choinis- 
singers  —  first  and  second  violoncellos  —  double  basses 
—  and  clarionets  —  who  ate  his  cold  mutton  and  drank 
his  punch,  and  praised  his  ear.  He  sate  like  Lord 
Midas  among  them.  But  at  the  desk  Tipp  was  quite 
another  sort  of  creature.  Thence  all  ideas,  that  were 
purely  ornamental,  were  banished.  You  could  not 
speak  of  anything  romantic  without  rebuke.  Politics 
were  excluded.  A  newspaper  was  thought  too  refined 
and  abstracted.     The  whole  duty  of  man  consisted  in 


16  THE   SOUTH-SEA   HOUSE. 

writing  off  dividend  warrants.  The  striking  of  the 
annual  balance  in  the  company's  books  (which,  per- 
haps, differed  from  the  balance  of  last  year  in  the  sum 
of  251.  Is.  6c?.)  occupied  his  days  and  nights  for  a 
month  previous.  Not  that  Tipp  was  blind  to  tlie  dead- 
ness  of  things  (as  they  call  them  in  the  city)  in  his 
beloved  house,  or  did  not  sigh  for  a  retiu'n  of  the  old 
stirring  days  when  South-Sea  hopes  were  young  —  (he 
was  indeed  equal  to  the  wielding  of  any  the  most  in- 
tricate accounts  of  the  most  flourishmg  company  in 
these  or  those  days)  ;  —  but  to  a  genuine  accountant 
the  difference  of  proceeds  is  as  nothing.  The  fractional 
farthing  is  as  dear  to  his  heart  as  the  thousands  which 
stand  before  it.  He  is  the  true  actor,  who,  whether 
nis  part  be  a  prince  or  a  peasant,  must  act  it  with  like 
intensity.  With  Tipp  form  was  everything.  His  life 
was  formal.  His  actions  seemed  ruled  with  a  ruler. 
His  pen  was  not  less  erring  than  his  heart.  He  made 
the  best  executor  in  the  world  ;  he  was  plagued  with 
incessant  executorships  accordingly,  which  excited  his 
spleen  and  soothed  his  vanity  in  equal  ratios.  He 
would  swear  (for  Tipp  swore)  at  the  little  orphans, 
whose  rights  he  would  guard  with  a  tenacity  like  the 
grasp  of  the  dying  hand,  that  commended  their  interests 
to  his  protection.  With  all  this  there  was  about  him 
a  sort  of  timidity  —  (his  few  enemies  used  to  give  it  a 
worse  name)  —  a  something  which,  in  reverence  to  the 
dead,  we  will  place,  if  you  please,  a  little  on  this  side 
of  the  heroic.  Nature  certahily  had  been  pleased  to 
endow  John  Tipp  with  a  sufficient  measiu'e  of  the 
principle  of  self-preservation.  Tliere  is  a  cowardice 
which  we  do  not  despise,  because  it  has  nothing  base 
or  treacherous   in   its  elements  ;   it  betrays   itself,  not 


THE   SOUTH-SEA  HOUSE.  17 

you ;  it  is  mere  temperament ;  the  absence  of  the 
romantic  and  the  enterprising ;  it  sees  a  Hon  in  the 
way,  and  will  not,  with  Fortinbras,  "  gi-eatly  find 
quarrel  in  a  straw,"  when  some  supposed  honor  is  at 
stake.  Tipp  never  mounted  the  box  of  a  stage-coacli 
in  his  life  ;  or  leaned  against  the  rails  of  a  balcony ; 
or  walked  upon  the  ridge  of  a  parapet ;  or  looked  down 
a  precipice ;  or  let  off  a  gun  ;  or  went  upon  a  water- 
party  ;  or  would  willingly  let  you  go,  if  he  could  have 
helped  it ;  neither  was  it  recorded  of  him,  that  for 
lucre,  or  for  intimidation,  he  ever  forsook  friend  or 
principle. 

Whom  next  shall  we  summon  fi'om  the  dusty  dead, 
in  whom  common  qualities  become  uncommon  ?  Can 
I  forget  thee,  Henry  Man,  the  wit,  the  polished  man 
of  letters,  the  author^  of  the  South-Sea  House  ?  who 
never  enteredst  thy  office  in  a  morning,  or  quittedst  it 
in  mid-day — (what  didst  thou  in  an  office?)  —  with- 
out some  quirk  that  left  a  sting !  Thy  gibes  and  thy 
jokes  are  now  extinct,  or  survive  but  in  two  forgotten 
volumes,  which  I  had  the  good  fortune  to  rescue  from 
a  stall  in  Barbican,  not  three  days  ago,  and  found  thee 
terse,  fresh,  epigrammatic,  as  alive.  Thy  wit  is  a  little 
gone  by  in  these  fastidious  days  —  thy  topics  are  staled 
by  the  "  ncAv-born  gauds"  of  the  time; — but  great 
thou  used  to  be  in  Public  Ledgers,  and  in  Chronicles, 
upon  Chatham,  and  Shelburne,  and  Rockingham,  and 
Howe,  and  Burgoyne,  and  Clinton,  and  the  war  which 
ended  in  the  tearing  from  Great  Britain  her  rebellious 
colonies,  —  and  Keppel,  and  Wilkes,  and  SaAvbridge, 
and  Bull,  and  Dunning,  and  Pratt,  and  Richmond,  — 
and  such  small  politics. 

A  little  less  facetious,  and  a  great  deal  more  obstrep- 


18  THE   SOUTH-SEA  HOUSE. 

erous,  was  fine  rattling,  rattle-headed  Plumer.  He 
was  descended,  —  not  in  a  right  line,  reader,  (for  hia 
lineal  pretensions,  like  his  personal,  favored  a  little  of 
the  sinister  bend,)  from  the  Plumers  of  Hertfordshire. 
So  tradition  gave  him  out ;  and  certain  family  features 
not  a  little  sanctioned  the  opinion.  Certainly  old 
Walter  Plumer  (his  reputed  author)  had  been  a  rake 
in  his  days,  and  visited  much  in  Italy,  and  had  seen 
the  world.  He  was  uncle,  bachelor-uncle,  to  the  fine 
old  whig  still  hving,  who  has  represented  the  county 
in  so  many  successive  parliaments,  and  has  a  fine  old 
mansion  near  Ware.  Walter  flourished  in  George 
the  Second's  days,  and  was  the  same  who  was  sum- 
moned before  the  House  of  Commons  about  a  busi- 
ness of  franks,  with  the  old .  Duchess  of  Marlborough. 
You  may  read  of  it  in  Johnson's  "  Life  of  Cave."  Cave 
came  off  cleverly  in  that  business.  It  is  certam  our 
Plumer  did  nothmg  to  discountenance  the  rumor. 
He  rather  seemed  pleased  whenever  it  was,  with  all 
gentleness,  insinuated.  But,  besides  his  family  pre- 
tensions, Plumer  was   an   engaging  fellow,  and  sang 

gloriously. 

Not  so  sweetly  sang  Plumer  as  thou  sangest,  mild, 

childlike,    pastoral    M ;    a  .flute's   breathing   less 

divinely  v.diispering  than  thy  Arcadian  melodies,  when, 
in  tones  worthy  of  Arden,  thou  didst  chant  that  song 
sung  by  Amiens  to  the  banished  Duke,  which  pro- 
claims the  winter  wind  more   lenient  than  for  a  man 

to  be  ungrateful.     Thy  sire  was  old  surly  M ,  the 

unapproachable  churchwarden  of  Bishopsgate.  He 
knew  not  what  he  did,  when  he  begat  thee,  like  spring, 
gentle  offspring  of  blustering  winter :  —  only  unfortu- 
nate in  thy  ending,  which  should  have  been  mild,  con- 
ciliato)'y,  swan-like. 


OXFORD   IN  THE  VACATION.  13 

Much  remains  to  sing.  Many  fantastic  shapes  rise 
up,  but  they  must  be  mine  in  private  ;  —  ah-eady  I 
have  fooled  the  reader  to  tlie  top  of  his  bent ;  —  else 
could  I  omit  that  strange  creature  Woollett,  who 
existed  in  trying  the  question,  and  bought  litigations  ? 
—  and  still  stranger,  inimitable,  solemn  Hepworth, 
from  whose  gravity  Newton  might  have  deduced  the 
law  of  gravitation.  How  profoundly  Avould  he  nib 
a  pen  —  with  what  deliberation  would  he  wet  a 
wafer ! 

But  it  is  time  to  close  —  night's  wheels  are  rattling 
fast  over  me  —  it  is  proper  to  have  done  with  this 
solemn  mockeiy. 

Reader,  what  if  I  have  been  playing  with  thee  all 
this  while  ?  —  peradventure  the  veiy  names,  which  I 
have  summoned  up  before  thee,  are  fantastic  —  insub- 
stantial —  like  Henry  Pimpernel,  and  old  John  Naps 
of  Greece ; 

Be  satisfied  that  something  answering  to  them  has 
had  a  being.     Their  importance  is  from  the  past. 


OXFORD  IN   THE  VACATION. 

Casting  a  preparatory  glance  at  the  bottom  of  this 
article  —  as  the  wary  connoisseur  in  prints,  with  cur- 
sory eye,  (which,  while  it  reads,  seems  as  though  it 
read  not,)  never  fails  to  consult  the  quis  scnlpsit  in 
the  corner,  befoi'e  he  pronounces  some  rare   piece  to 

be  a  Vivares,  or  a  Woollett methinks  I  hear  you 

exclaim,  Reader,  WJio  is  Elia  ? 

Because  in  my  last  I  tried  to  divert  thee  with  some 


20  OXFORD   IN  THE  VACATION. 

half-forgotten  humors  of  some  old  clerks  defunct,  in 
an  old  house  of  business,  long  since  gone  to  decay, 
doubtless  you  have  already  set  me  down  in  your  mind 

as  one  of  the   self-same   college a   votary    of   the 

desk  —  a  notched  and  cropt  scrivener  —  one  that  sucks 
his  sustenance,  as  certain  sick  people  are  said  to  do, 
through  a  quill. 

Well,  I  do  agnize  something  of  the  sort.     I  confess 
that  it  is  my  humor,   my  fancy  —  in   the   forepart   of 
the  day,  when  the  mind  of  your  man  of  letters  requires 
some  relaxation  —  (and  none  better  than  such  as  at 
first   sight   seems   most    abhorrent   fi-om    his    beloved 
studies)  —  to    while   away    some   good    hours    of    my 
time   in    the    contemplation    of   mdigos,    cottons,    raw 
silks,    piece-goods,    flowered    or    otherwise.       In    the 
first  place  ....... 

and  then  it  sends  you  home  with  such  increased  appe- 
tite to  youi'  books  ...... 

not  to  say,  that  your  outside  sheets,  and  waste  wrap- 
pers   of  foolscap,   do  receive   into  them,  most   kindly 
and   naturally,    the   impression    of  sonnets,    epigrams, 
essays  —  so  that  the  very  parings  of  a  counting-house 
are,  in  some  sort,  the  settings  up   of  an  author.     The 
enfranchised  quill,  that  has    plodded  all  the  morning 
among    the    cart-rucks    of  figures    and    ciphers,    frisks 
and   curvets  so  at  its    ease    over    the    flowery    carpet- 
ground  of  a  midnight  dissertation.  —  It  feels  its  pro- 
motion. ........ 

So  that  you  see,  upon  the  whole,  the  literary  dignity 
of  Elia  is  very  little,  if  at  all,  compromised  in  the 
condescension. 

Not  that,  in  my  anxious  detail  of  the  many  com- 
modities incidental    to   the   life   of  a  public   oflice,   I 


OXFOi^D   IN   THE  VACATION.  21 

would  be  tliouslit  blind  to  certain  flaws,  which  a 
cunning  carper  might  be  able  to  pick  in  this  Joseph's 
vest.  And  here  I  must  have  leave,  in  the  fulness  of 
my  soul,  to  regret  the  abolition,  and  doing-away-with 
altogether,  of  those  consolatory  interstices,  and  sprink- 
lings of  freedom,  through  the  four  seasons,  —  the  red- 
letter  dai/s,  now  become,  to  all  intents  and  purposes, 
dead-letter  days.  There  was  Paul,  and  Stephen,  and 
Barnabas  — 

Andrew  and  John,  men  famous  in  old  times 

—  we  were  used  to  keep  all  their  days  holy,  as  long 
back  as  I  was  at  school  at  Christ's.  I  remember 
their  effigies,  by  the  same  token,  in  the  old  Basket 
Prayer     Book.       There    hung    Peter    in    his    vmeasy 

posture boly  Bartlemy  in  the  troublesome  act  of 

flaying,    after    the    famous    Marsyas    by    Spagnoletti. 

1  honored  them  all,  and  could  almost   have  wept 

the  defalcation  of  Iscariot  —  so  much  did  we  love  to 
keep  holy  memories  sacred ;  —  only  methought  I  a 
little  o;rudo;ed  at  the  coalition  of  the  better  Jade  with 
Simon  —  clubbing  (as  it  were)  their  sanctities  together, 
to  make  up  one  poor  gaudy-day  between  them — as  an 
economy  unworthy  of  the  dispensation. 

These  were  bright  visitations  in  a  scholar's  and  a 
clerk's  life  —  "far  off*  their  coming  shone."  —  I  was  as 
good  as  an  almanac  in  those  days.  I  could  have  told 
you  such  a  saint's  day  falls  out  next  week,  or  the  week 
after.  Peradventure  the  Epiphany,  by  some  periodical 
infelicity,  would,  once  in  six  years,  merge  in  a  Sabbath. 
Now  am  I  little  better  than  one  of  the  profane.  Let 
me  not  be  thought  to  arraign  the  wisdom  of  my  civil 
superiors,  who  have  judged  the  ftirther  observation  of 


22  OXFORD   IN  THE   VACATION. 

these  holy  tides  to  be  papistical,  superstitious.  Onlj 
in  a  custom  of  such  long  standing,  methinks,  if  theii 
Holinesses    the    Bishops   had,    in    decency,    been    first 

sounded but  I  am  wading  out  of  my  depths.     I 

am  not  the  man  to  decide  the  limits  of  civil  and  ecclesi- 
astical   authority I   am  plain    Elia  —  no    Selden, 

nor  Archbishop  Usher  —  though  at  present  in  the  thick 
of  their  books,  here  in  the  heart  of  learnmg,  under  the 
shadow  of  the  mighty  Bodley. 

I  can  here  play  the  gentleman,  enact  the  student. 
To  such  a  one  as  myself,  who  has  been  deft-auded  in 
his  young  years  of  the  sweet  food  of  academic  insti- 
tution, nowhere  is  so  pleasant,  to  while  away  a  few 
idle  weeks  at,  as  one  or  other  of  the  Universities. 
Their  vacation,  too,  at  this  time  of  the  year,  falls  in 
so  pat  with  ours.  Here  I  can  take  my  walks  unmo- 
lested, and  fancy  myself  of  what  degree  or  standing 
I  please.  I  seem  admitted  ad  eundeni.  I  fetch  up 
past  opportunities.  I  can  rise  at  the  chapel-bell,  and 
dream  that  it  rings  for  me.  In  moods  of  humility  I 
can  be  a  Sizar,  or  a  Servitor.  When  the  peacock  vein 
rises,  I  sti'ut  a  Gentleman  Commoner.  In  graver 
moments,  I  proceed  Master  of  Arts,  Indeed  I  do 
not  think  I  am  much  milike  that  respectable  char- 
acter. I  have  seen  your  dim-eyed  vergers,  and  bed- 
makers  in  spectacles,  drop  a  bow  or  a  curtsy,  as  I  pass, 
wisely  mistaking  me  for  something  of  the  sort.  I  go 
about  in  black,  which  favors  the  notion.  Only  in 
Christ  Church  reverend  quadrangle,  I  can  be  content 
to  pass  for  nothing  short  of  a  Seraphic  Doctor. 

The  walks  at  these  times  are  so  much  one's  OA\m,  — 
the  tall  trees  of  Christ's,  the  groves  of  Magdalen  ! 
The  halls  deserted,  and  with  open  doors  inviting  one 


OXFORD   IN   THE   VACATION.  23 

to  slip  in  uiiperceived,  and  pay  a  devoir  to  some 
Founder,  or  noble  or  royal  Benefactress  (that  should 
have  been  ours),  whose  portrait  seems  to  smile  upon 
their  over-looked  beadsman,  and  to  adopt  me  for  their 
own.  Then,  to  take  a  peep  in  by  the  way  at  the  but- 
teries, and  sculleries,  redolent  of  antique  hospitality 
the  immense  caves  of  kitchens,  kitchen  fireplaces, 
cordial  recesses ;  ovens  whose  first  pies  were  baked 
four  centuries  ago  ;  and  spits  which  have  cooked  for 
Chaucer  !  Not  the  meanest  minister  among  the  dishes 
but  is  hallowed  to  me  through  his  imagination,  and  the 
Cook  goes  forth  a  Manciple. 

Antiquity !  thou  wondi'ous  charm,  what  art  thou  ? 
that  being  nothing,  art  everything  !  When  thou  wert^ 
thou  wert  not  antiquity  —  then  thou  wert  nothmg,  but 
hadst  a  remoter  Mitiquity^  as  thou  calledst  it,  to  look 
back  to  with  blind  veneration  ;  thou  thyself  being  to 
thyself  flat,  jejune,  modern!  What  mysteiy  lui'ks  in 
this  retroversion  ?  or  what  half  Januses  *  are  we, 
that  cannot  look  forward  with  the  same  idolatry  with 
which  we  forever  revert !  The  mighty  future  is  as 
nothing,  being  everything !  the  past  is  everything, 
being  nothing  ! 

What  were  thy  dark  ages  ?  Surely  the  sun  rose  as 
brightly  then  as  now,  and  man  got  him  to  his  work  in 
the  morning.  Why  is  it  we  can  never  hear  mention 
of  them  without  an  accompanjdng  feeling,  as  though 
a  palpable  obscure  had  dimmed  the  face  of  things,  and 
that  our  ancestors  wandered  to  and  fi'o  groping  ! 

Above  all  thy  rarities,  old  Oxenford,  what  do  most 
arride  and  solace  me,  are  thy  repositories  of  mouldering 
learning,  thy  shelves 

*  Januses  of  one  face. — Sir  Thomas  Bkownk. 


24  OXFOKD   IN  THE    VACATION. 

What  a  place  to  be  in  is  an  old  library  !  It  seems 
as  though  all  the  souls  of  all  the  writers,  that  have 
bequeathed  their  labors  to  these  Bodleians,  were  re- 
posing here  as  in  some  dormitory,  or  middle  state.  I 
do  not  want  to  handle,  to  profane  the  leaves,  their 
winding-sheets.  I  could  as  soon  dislodge  a  shade.  I 
seem  to  inhale  learning,  walkmg  amid  their  fohage  ; 
and  the  odor  of  their  old  moth-scented  coverings  is 
fragrant  as  the  first  bloom  of  those  sciential  apples 
which  grew  amid  the  happy  orchard. 

Still  less  have  I  curiosity  to  disturb  the  elder  repose 
ol  MSS.  Those  varice  lectiones,  so  tempting  to  the 
more  erudite  palates,  do  but  disturb  and  unsettle  my 
faith.  I  am  no  Herculanean  raker.  The  credit  of  the 
tliree  witnesses  might  hai'e  slept  unimpeached  for  me. 
I  leave  these  curiosities  to  Porson,  and  to  G.  D. — 
whom,  by  the  way,  I  found  busy  as  a  moth  over  some 
rotten  archive,  rummaged  out  of  some  seldom-explored 
press,  in  a  nook  at  Oriel.  With  long  poring,  he  is 
grown  almost  into  a  book.  He  stood  as  passive  as  one 
by  the  side  of  the  old  shelves.  I  longed  to  new  coat 
him  in  russia,  and  assign  him  his  place.  He  might 
have  mustered  for  a  tall  Scapula. 

D.  is  assiduous  in  his  visits  to  these  seats  of  learnmo;. 
No  inconsiderable  portion  of  his  moderate  fortime,  I 
apprehend,  is  consumed  in  joui'neys  between  them  and 

Cliiford's-inn where,  like  a  dove  on  the  asp's  nest, 

he  has  long  taken  up  his  unconscious  abode,  amid  an 
incongruous  assembly  of  attorneys,  attorneys'  clerks, 
apparitors,  promoters,  vermin  of  the  law,  among  whom 
he  sits  "  in  calm  and  sinless  peace."  The  fangs  of  the 
law  pierce  him  not  —  the  winds  of  litigation  blow  over 
his  humble  chambers  —  the  hard  sheriff's  officer  moves 


OXFORD   EN  THP:   VACATION  25 

his  hat  as  he  passes  —  legal  nor  illegal  discourtesy 
touches  him  —  none  thinks  of  offering  violence  or  in- 
justice to  him  —  you  would  as  soon  "  strike  an  ab- 
stract idea.'' 

D.  has  been  engaged,  he  tells  me,  through  a  course 
of  laborious  years,  in  an  investigation  hito  all  curious 
matter  connected  with  the  two  Universities  ;  and  has 
lately  lit  upon  a  MS.  collection  of   charters,  relative 

to  C ,  by  which  he  hopes  to  settle  some  disputed 

points  —  particularly  that  long  controversy  between 
them  as  to  priority  of  foundation.  The  ardor  with 
which  he  engages  in  these  liberal  pursuits,  I  am  afraid, 
has  not  met  with  all   the  encouragement  it  deserved, 

either  here,  or  at  C .     Your  caputs,  and  heads  of 

colleges,  care  less  than  anybody  else  about  these  ques- 
tions. —  Contented  to  suck  the  milky  fountains  of  their 
Alma  Maters,  without  inquiring  into  the  venerable 
gentlewomen's  years,  they  rather  hold  such  curiosities 
to  be  impertinent  —  unreverend.  They  have  their 
good  glebe  lands  in  manu,  and  care  not  much  to  rake 
into  the  title  deeds.  I  gather  at  least  so  much  from 
other  sources,  for  D.  is  not  a  man  to  complain. 

D.  started  like  an  unbroke  heifer,  when  I  inter- 
rupted him.  A  priori  it  was  not  veiy  probable  that 
we  should  have  met  in  Oriel.  But  D.  would  have 
done  the  same,  had  I  accosted  him  on  the  sudden  in 
his  owm  walks  in  ClifFord's-inn,  or  in  the  Temple.  In 
addition  to  a  provoking  short-sightedness  (the  effect  of 
late  studies  and  watchings  at  the  midnight  oil),  D.  is 
the  most  absent  of  men.  He  made  a  call  the  other 
morning  at  our  finend  M.'s  in  Bedford-square ;  and, 
finding  nobody  at  home,  was  ushered  into  the  hall, 
where,  asking  for  pen  and  ink,  with  great  exactitude 


26  OXFORD   IN   THE   VACATION. 

of  pui'pose  he  enters  me  his  name  in  the  book  —  which 
ordinarily  Mes  about  m  such  phices,  to  record  the  fail- 
ures of  the  untimely  or  unfortunate  visitor  —  and  takes 
his  leave  Avith  many  cerelnonies  and  professions  of 
regret.  Some  two  or  three  hours  after,  his  walking 
destinies  returned  him  into  the  same  neighborhood 
again,  and  again  the  quiet  image  of  the  fireside  circle 
at  M.'s  —  Mrs.  M.  presiding  at  it  like  a  Queen  Lar, 
with  pretty  A.  S.  at  her  side  —  striking  irresistibly  on 
liis  fancy,  he  makes  another  call  (forgetting  that  they 
were  "  certainly  not  to  return  from  the  country  before 
that  day  week  "),  and  disappointed  a  second  time,  in- 
quires for  pen  and  paper  as  before  ;  again  the  book  is 
brought,  and  in  the  line  just  above  that  in  which  he  is 
about  to  print  his  second  name  (his  re-script)  — his  first 
name  (scarce  dry)  looks  out  upon  him  like  another 
Sosia,  or  as  if  a  man  should  suddenly  encounter  his 
own  duplicate !  — The  effect  may  be  conceived.  D. 
made  many  a  good  resolution  against  any  such  lapses 
in  future.  I  hope  he  will  not  keep  them  too  rigorously. 
For  with  G.  D.  —  to  be  absent  from  the  body,  is 
sometimes  (not  to  speak  it  profanely)  to  be  present 
with  the  Lord.  At  the  very  time  when,  personally 
encountering  thee,  he  passes   on  with   no  recognition 

or,  being  stopped,  starts  like  a  thing  surprised  — 

at  that  moment,  reader,  he  is  on  Mount  Tabor  — 
or  Parnassus  —  or  co-sphered  Avith  Plato  —  or,  with 
Harrinffton,  framino;  "immortal  commonwealths"  — 
devising  some  plan  of  amelioration  to  thy  countiy,  or 
thy  species perad venture  meditating  some  indi- 
vidual kindness  or  courtesy,  to  be  done  to  thee  thi/selfy 
the  returning  consciousness  of  which  made  him  to 
stall  so  guiltily  at  thy  obtruded  personal  presence. 


CHRIST'S   HOSPITAL,  &c.  27 

D.  is  deliglitftil  anywhere,  but  he  is  at  the  best  in 
such  places  as  tliese.  He  cares  not  much  for  Bath. 
He  is  out  of  his  element  at  Buxton,  at  Scarborough, 
or  Harrowgate.  The  Cam  and  the  Isis  are  to  him 
"  better  than  all  the  waters  of  Damascus."  On  the 
Muses'  hill  he  is  happy,  and  good,  as  one  of  the 
Shepherds  on  the  Delectable  Mountains ;  and  when 
he  goes  about  with  you  to  show  you  the  halls  and 
colleges,  you  think  you  have  with  you  the  Interpreter 
at  the  House  Beautiful. 


CHRIST'S   HOSPITAL   FIVE-AND-THIRTY   YEARS 
AGO. 

In  Mr.  Lamb's  "  Works,"  published  a  year  or  two 
since,  I  find  a  magnificent  eulogy  on  my  old  school,* 
such  as  it  was,  or  now  appears  to  him  to  have  been, 
between  the  years  1782  and  1789.  It  happens,  very 
oddly,  that  my  own  stanchng  at  Christ's  was  nearly 
corresponding  with  his  ;  and,  with  all  gratitude  to  him 
for  his  enthusiasm  for  the  cloisters,  I  think  he  has  con- 
trived to  bring  together  whatever  can  be  said  in  praise 
of  them,  dropping  all  the  other  side  of  the  argument 
most  ingeniously. 

I  remember  L.  at  school ;  and  can  well  recollect 
that  he  had  some  peculiar  advantages,  which  I  and 
others  of  his  schoolfellows  had  not.  His  friends  lived 
in  town,  and  were  near  at  hand  ;  and  he  had  the  privi- 
lege of  going  to  see  them,  almost  as  often  as  he  wished, 
through  some  invidious  distinction,  which  was  denied  to 
*  Recollections  of  Christ's  Hospital. 


28  CHRIST'S  HOSPITAL 

US.  The  present  worthy  sub-treasurer  to  the  Inner 
Temple  can  explain  how  that  happened.  He  had  his 
tea  and  hot  rolls  in  a  morning,  while  we  were  batten- 
ing upon  our  quarter-of-a-penny-loaf — our  et'ug  — 
moistened  with  attenuated  small  beer,  in  wooden  pig- 
gins,  smacking  of  the  pitched  leathern  jack  it  was 
poured  from.  Our  Monday's  milk  porridge,  blue  and 
tasteless,  and  the  pease  soup  of  Saturday,  coarse  and 
choking,  were  enriched  for  him  with  a  slice  of  "  extra- 
ordinary bread  and  butter,"  from  the  hot-loaf  of  the 
Temple.  The  Wednesday's  mess  of  millet,  somewhat 
less  repugnant  —  (we  had  three  banyan  to  four  meat 
days  in  the  week)  —  was  endeared  to  his  palate  with  a 
lump  of  double-refined,  and  a  smack  of  ginger  (to  make 
it  go  down  the  more  glibly)  or  the  fragrant  cinnamon. 
In  lieu  of  our  half-pickled  Sundays,  or  quite  fresh  boiled 
beef  on  Thursdays  (strong  as  caro  equina)^  with  detest- 
able marigolds  floating  in  the  pail  to  poison  the  broth 
—  our  scanty  mutton  scrags  on  Fridays  —  and  rather 
more  savoury,  but  ginidging,  portions  of  the  same  flesh, 
rotten-roasted  or  rare,  on  the  Tuesdays  (the  only  dish 
which  excited  our  appetites,  and  disappointed  our  stom- 
achs, in  almost  equal  proportion)  —  he  had  his  hot 
plate  of  roast  veal,  or  the  more  tempting  griskin  (exot- 
ics unknown  to  our  palates),  cooked  in  the  paternal 
kitchen  (a  great  thing),  and  brought  him  daily  by  his 
maid  or  aunt !  I  remember  the  good  old  relative  (in 
whom  love  forbade  pride)  squatting  down  u])on  some  odd 
stone  in  a  by-nook  of  the  cloisters,  disclosing  ♦.he  viands 
(of  higher  regale  than  those  cates  which  the  ravens 
ministered  to  the  Tishbite)  ;  and  the  contending  pas- 
sions of  L.  at  the  unfolding;.  There  was  love  for  the 
bringer ;  shame  for  the  thing  brought,  and  the  manner 


FIVE-AND-THIRTY  YEARS   AGO.  29 

of  its  bringing ;  sympathy  for  those  who  were  too  many 
to  sliare  in  it ;  and,  at  top  of  all,  hunger  (eldest, 
strongest  of  the  passions !)  predommant,  breaking  down 
the  stony  fences  of  shame,  and  awkAvardness,  and  a 
troublino;  over-consciousness. 

I  was  a  poor  friendless  boy.  My  parents,  and  those 
who  should  care  for  me,  were  far  away.  Those  few 
acquaintances  of  theirs,  which  they  could  reckon  upon 
being  khid  to  me  in  the  great  city,  after  a  little  forced 
notice,  which  they  had  the  grace  to  take  of  me  on  my 
first  arrival  in  town,  soon  grew  tired  of  my  holiday 
visits.  They  seemed  to  them  to  recur  too  often, 
though  I  thought  them  few  enough  ;  and,  one  after 
another,  they  all  failed  me,  and  I  felt  myself  alone 
among  six  hundred  playmates. 

O  the  cnielty  of  separating  a  poor  lad  from  his 
early  homestead  !  The  yearnings  which  I  used  to 
have  towards  it  in  those  unfledged  years !  How,  in 
my  dreams,  would  my  native  town  (far  in  the  west) 
come  back,  with  its  church,  and  trees,  and  faces ! 
How  I  would  wake  weeping,  and  in  the  anguish  of 
my  heart  exclaim  upon  sweet  Calne  in  Wiltshire. 

To  this  late  hour  of  my  life,  I  trace  impressions 
left  by  the  recollection  of  those  friendless  holidays. 
The  long  warm  days  of  summer  never  return  but 
they  bring  with  them  a  gloom  fi-om  the  haunting 
memory  of  those  whole-day  leaves^  when  by  some 
strange  arrangement  we  were  turned  out,  for  the  live- 
long day,  upon  our  own  hands,  wliether  we  had  friends 
to  go  to,  or  none.  I  remember  those  bathing  excur- 
sions to  the  New  River,  which  L.  recalls  with  such 
relish,  better,  I  think,  than  he  can  —  for  he  was  a  home- 
seeking  lad,  and   did  not  much  care  for   such  water- 


30  CHRIST'S   HOSPITAL 

pastimes  :  —  How  merrily  we  would  sally  forth  into  the 
fields ;  and  strip  under  the  first  warmth  of  the  sun , 
and  wanton  like  young  dace  in  the  streams  ;  getting  us 
appetites  for  noon,  which  those  of  us  that  were  penni- 
less (our  scanty  morning  crust  long  since  exhausted) 
had  not  the  means  of  allaying  —  while  the  cattle,  and 
the  birds,  and  the  fishes,  were  at  feed  about  us  and  we 
had  nothing  to  satisfy  our  cravings  —  the  very  beauty 
of  the  day,  and  the  exercise  of  the  pastime,  and  the 
sense  of  liberty,  setting  a  keener  edge  upon  them  !  — 
How  faint  and  languid,  finally,  we  would  return,  tow- 
ards nightfall,  to  our  desu-ed  morsel,  half-rejoicing, 
half-reluctant,  that  the  hours  of  our  uneasy  liberty  had 
expired  ! 

It  was  worse  in  the  days  of  winter,  to  go  prowling 
about  the  streets  objectless  —  shivering  at  cold  windows 
of  print-shops,  to  extract  a  little  amusement ;  or  haply, 
as  a  last  resort  in  the  hopes  of  a  little  novelty,  to  pay  a 
fifty-times  repeated  visit  (where  our  individual  faces 
should  be  as  well  known  to  the  warden  as  those  of  his 
own  charges)  to  the  Lions  in  the  Tower  —  to  whose 
levee,  by  courtesy  immemorial,  we  had  a  prescriptive 
title  to  admission. 

L.'s  governor  (so  we  called  the  patron  who  pre- 
sented us  to  the  foimdation)  lived  in  a  manner  under 
his  paternal  roof.  Any  complaint  which  he  had  to 
make  was  sure  of  being  attended  to.  This  was  under- 
stood at  Christ's,  and  was  an  effectual  screen  to  him 
against  the  severity  of  masters,  or  worse  tyranny  of 
the  monitors.  The  oppressions  of  these  young  brutes 
are  heart-sickening  to  call  to  recollection.  I  have  been 
called  out  of  my  bed,  and  waked  for  the  purpose,  in  the 
coldest  winter  nights  —  and  this  not  once,  but  night 


FIVE-AND-THIRTY   YEARS   AGO.  31 

after  night  —  in  my  shii't,  to  receive  the  discipline  of  a 
leathern  thong,  with  eleven  other  sufferers,  because  it 
pleased  my  callow  overseer,  when  there  had  been  any 
talking  heard  after  we  were  gone  to  bed,  to  make  the 
last  six  beds  in  the  dormitory,  where  the  youngest 
children  of  us  slept,  answerable  for  an  offence  they 
neither  dared  to  commit,  nor  had  the  power  to  hinder. 
The  same  execrable  tyranny  drove  the  younger  part  of 
us  from  the  fires,  when  our  feet  were  perishing  with 
snow  ;  and,  under  the  cruelest  penalties,  forbade  the 
indulgence  of  a  drink  of  water  when  we  lay  in  sleep- 
less summer  nights,  fevered  with  the  season  and  the 
day's  sports. 

There  was  one  H ,  who,  I  learned,  in  after  days, 

was  seen  expiating  some  maturer  offence  in  the  hulks. 
(Do  I  flatter  myself  in  fancying  that  this  might  be  the 
planter  of  that  name,  who  suffered  —  at  Nevis,  I  think, 
or  St.  Kitts  —  some  few  years  since  ?  My  fiiend 
Tobin  was  the  benevolent  instrument  of  bringing  him 
to  the  gallows.)  This  petty  Nero  actually  branded  a 
boy,  who  had  offended  him,  with  a  redhot  iron  ;  and 
nearly  starved  forty  of  us,  with  exacting  contributions, 
to  the  one  half  of  our  bread,  to  pamper  a  young  ass, 
which,  incredible  as  it  may  seem,  with  the  connivance 
of  the  nurse's  daughter  (a  young  flame  of  his)  he  had 
contrived  to  smuggle  in,  and  keep  upon  the  leads  of  the 
ward^  as  they  called  our  dormitories.  This  game  went 
on  for  better  than  a  Aveek,  till  the  foolish  beast,  not  able 
to  fare  well  but  he  must  cry  roast  meat  —  happier  than 
Caligula's  minion,  could  he  have  kept  his  own  counsel 
—  but,  foolisher,  alas !  than  any  of  his  species  in  the 
fables  —  waxing  fat,  and  kicking,  in  the  fulness  of 
bread,  one  unlucky  minute  would  needs  proclaim  hia 


32  CHRIST'S   HOSPITAL 

good  fortune  to  the  world  below  ;  and,  laying  out  his 
simple  throat,  blew  such  a  ram's-horn  blast,  as  (toppling 
down  the  Avails  of  his  own  Jericho)  set  concealment 
any  longer  at  defiance.  The  client  was  dismissed,  with 
certain  attentions,  to  Smithfield ;  but  I  never  under- 
stood that  the  patron  underwent  any  censure  on  the 
occasion.  This  was  in  the  stewardship  of  L.'s  admired 
Perry. 

Under  the  same  facile  administration,  can  L.  have 
forgotten  the  cool  impunity  with  which  the  nurses  used 
to  carry  away  openly,  in  open  platters,  for  their  own 
tables,  one  out  of  two  of  eveiy  hot  joint,  which  the  care- 
ful matron  had  been  seeing  scrupulously  weighed  out 
for  our  dinners  ?  These  things  were  daily  practised  in 
that  magnificent  apartment,  which  L.  (grown  connois- 
seiu'  since,  we  presume,)  praises  so  highly  for  the  grand 
paintings  "  by  Verrio,  and  others,"  with  which  it  is 
"huno;  round  and  adorned."  But  the  sight  of  sleek 
well-fed  blue-coat  boys  in  pictures  was,  at  that  time,  I 
believe,  little  consolatory  to  him,  or  us,  the  living  ones, 
who  saw  the  better  part  of  our  provisions  carried  away 
before  our  faces  by  harpies ;  and  ourselves  reduced 
(with  thelrojan  in  the  hall  of  Dido) 

To  feed  our  mind  with  idle  portraiture. 

L.  has  recorded  the  repugnance  of  the  school  to 
gags^  or  the  fat  of  fresh  beef  boiled ;  and  sets  it  down 
to  some  sujierstition.  But  these  unctuous  morsels  are 
never  grateful  to  young  palates  (children  are  univer- 
.sally  fat-haters),  and  in  strong,  coarse,  boiled  meats, 
unsalted,  are  detestable.  A  gag-eater  in  our  time  was 
equivalent  to  a  ghoul,  and  held  in  equal  detestat'oii. 
suffered  under  the  imputation  : 


FIVE  AND  THIRTY   YEARS   AGO.  38 

'Twas  said 
He  ate  strange  flesh. 

He  was  observed,  after  dinner,  carefully  to  gather  up 
the  remnants  left  at  his  table  (not  many,  nor  veiy 
choice  fragments  you  may  credit  me,)  —  and,  in  an 
especial  manner,  these  disreputable  morsels,  which  he 
would  convey  away,  and  secretly  stow  in  the  settle 
that  stood  at  his  bedside.  None  saw  when  he  ate 
them.  It  was  rumoured  that  he  privately  devoured 
them  in  the  night.  He  was  watched,  but  no  traces  of 
such  midnight  practices  were  discoverable.  Some  re- 
ported, that,  on  leave-days,  he  had  been  seen  to  carry 
out  of  the  bounds  a  large  blue  check  handkerchief,  full 
of  something.  This  then  mvist  be  the  accursed  thing. 
Conjecture  next  was  at  work  to  imagine  how  he  could 
dispose  of  it.  Some  said  he  sold  it  to  the  beggars. 
This  belief  generally  prevailed.  He  went  about  mop- 
ing. None  spake  to  him.  No  one  would  play  with 
him.  He  was  excommunicated ;  j)ut  out  of  the  pale  of 
the  school.  He  was  too  powerful  a  boy  to  be  beaten, 
but  he  underwent  every  mode  of  that  negative  punish- 
ment, which  is  more  grievous  than  many  stripes.  Still 
he  persevered.  At  length  he  was  observed  by  two  of 
his  school-fellows,  who  were  determined  to  get  at  the 
secret,  and  had  traced  him  one  leavo  hxv  for  that  pur- 
pose, to  enter  a  large  worn-out  buildn^g,  such  as  there 
exist  specimens  of  in  Chancery-lane,  which  are  let  out 
to  various  scales  of  pauperism,  with  open  door  and  a 
common  staircase.  After  him  they  silently  slunk, in, 
and  followed  by  stealth  up  four  flights,  and  saw  him 
tap  at  a  poor  wicket,  which  was  opened  by  an  aged 
woman,  meanly  clad.  Suspicion  was  now  ripened  into 
certainty.     The   informers  had   secui'ed   their  victim. 

VOL.    111.  3 


34  CHRIS rs  hospital 

The}"^  had  him  m  their  toils.  Accusation  was  fonnally 
preferred,  and  retribution  most  signal  was  looked  for. 
Mr.  Hathaway,  the  then  steward  (for  this  happened  a 
little  after  my  time),  with  that  patient  sagacity  which 
tempered  all  his  conduct,  determined  to  investigate  tlie 
matter,  before  he  proceeded  to  sentence.  The  result 
was,  that  the  supposed  mendicants,  the  receivers  or 
purchasers  of  the  mysterious  scraps,  turned  out  to  be 

the  parents  of ,  an  honest  couple  come  to  decay  — 

wh'^m  this  seasonable  supply  had,  in  all  probability, 
savod  from  mendicancy  ;  and  that  this  young  stork,  at 
the  expense  of  his  own  good  name,  had  all  this  while 
been  only  feeding  the  old  birds  !  —  The  governors  on 
this  occasion,  much  to  their    honor,   voted   a  present 

relief  to  the  family  of ,  and  presented  him  with  a 

silver  medal.  The  lesson  which  tlie  steward  read  upon 
RASH  JUDGMENT,  on  the  occasion  of  publicly  dehvering 

the  medal  to ,  I  believe  would  not  be  lost  upon  his 

auditory.  —  I  had  left  school  then,  but  I  well  remem- 
ber  .     He  was  a  tall,  shambling  youth,  with  a  cast 

in  his  eye,  not  at  all  calculated  to  conciliate  hostile  pre- 
judices. I  have  since  seen  him  carrying  a  baker's 
basket.  I  think  I  heard  he  did  not  do  quite  so  well  by 
himself,  as  he  had  done  by  the  old  folks. 

I  was  a  hypochondriac  lad  ;  and  the  sight  of  a  boy 
in  fetters,  upon  the  day  of  my  first  putting  on  the  blue 
clothes,  was  not  exactly  fitted  to  assuage  the  natural 
terrors  of  initiation.  I  was  of  tender  years,  barely 
turiied  of  seven ;  and  had  only  read  of  such  things  in 
books,  or  seen  them  but  in  dreams.  I  was  told  he  had 
run  aivay.  Tliis  was  the  punishment  for  tlie  first 
offence.  —  As  a  novice  I  was  soon  after  taken  to  see 
the  dungeons.     These  were  little,  square,  Bedlam  cells. 


FIVE-AND-THIRTY  YEARS  AGO.  3o 

where  a  boy  could  just  lie  at  his  length  upcn  straw  a>id 
a  blanket  —  a  mattress,  I  think,  was  afterwards  substi- 
tuted—  with  a  peep  of  light,  let  in  askance,  from  a 
prison-orifice  at  top,  barely  enough  to  read  by.  Here 
the  poor  boy  was  locked  in  by  himself  all  day,  without 
sight  of  any  but  the  porter  who  brought  him  his  bread 
and  wate]'  —  who  7ni(/ht  not  speak  to  him  ;  —  or  of  the 
beadle,  who  came  twice  a  week  to  call  him  out  to  re- 
ceive his  periodical  chastisement,  which  was  almost 
welcome,  because  it  separated  him  for  a  brief  interval 
from  solitude  ;  —  and  here  he  was  shut  up  by  himself 
of  nigJtts  out  of  the  reach  of  any  sound,  to  suffer  what- 
ever horrors  the  weak  nerves,  and  superstition  incident 
to  his  time  of  life,  might  subject  him  to.*  This  was 
the  penalty  for  the  second  offence.  Wouldst  thou  like, 
reader,  to  see  what  became  of  him  in  the  next  degree  ? 
The  culprit,  who  had  been  a  third  time  an  offender, 
and  whose  expulsion  was  at  this  time  deemed  irreversi- 
ble, was  brought  forth,  as  at  some  solemn  auto  da  /e, 
arrayed  in  uncouth  and  most  appalling  attire  —  all 
trace  of  his  late  "  watchet  weeds  "  carefully  effaced,  he 
was  exposed  in  a  jacket  resembling  those  which  London 
lamplighters  formerly  delighted  in,  with  a  cap  of  the 
same.  The  effect  of  this  divestiture  was  such  as  the 
ingenious  devisers  of  it  could  have  anticipated.  With 
his  pale  and  frighted  features,  it  was  as  if  some  of  those 
disfigurements  in  Dante  had  seized  upon  him.  In  tliis 
disguisement  he  was  brought  into  the  hall  (^U s  favorite 

*  One  or  two  instances  of  lunacj',  or  attempted  suicide,  accordingly,  at 
length  convinced  the  governors  of  tlie  impolicy  of  this  part  of  the  sentence, 
and  the  midnight  torture  to  the  spirits  was  dispensed  with. —  This  fancy 
of  dungeons  for  children  was  a  sprout  of  Howard's  brain;  for  which  (sav- 
ing the  revereni;e  due  to  Holy  Paul)  methinks,  I  could  willingly  spit  upon 
nis  sta',ue. 


36  CHRIST'S   HOSPITAL 

Btale^oom),  Avhere  awaited  him  the  wliole  number  of 
liis  school-fellows,  whose  jouit  lessons  and  sports  he  was 
thenceforth  to  share  no  more  ;  the  awful  presence  of 
the  steward,  to  be  seen  for  the  last  time ;  of  the  execu- 
tioner beadle,  clad  in  his  state  robe  for  the  occasion ; 
and  of  two  faces  more,  of  du-er  import,  because  never 
but  in  these  extremities  visible.  These  were  gover- 
nors ;  two  of  Avliom  by  choice,  or  charter,  were  always 
accustomed  to  officiate  at  these  Ultima  Supplicia  ;  not 
to  mitigate  (so  at  least  Ave  understood  it),  but  to  en- 
force the  uttermost  stripe.  Old  Bamber  Gascoigne, 
and  Peter  Aubert,  I  remember,  were  colleagues  on  one 
occasion,  when  the  beadle  turning  rather  pale,  a  glass 
of  brandy  was  ordered  to  prepare  him  for  the  mysteries. 
The  scouro-incr  was,  after  the  old  Roman  fashion,  long 
and  stately.  The  lictor  accompanied  the  crimmal  quite 
round  the  hall.  We  were  generally  too  faint  with  at- 
tending to  the  prcAaous  disgusting  circumstances,  to 
make  accurate  report  with  our  eyes  of  the  degree  of 
corporal  suffering  inflicted.  Report,  of  course,  gave 
out  the  back  knotty  and  livid.  After  scourging,  he 
was  made  over,  in  his  San  Benito,  to  his  fi'iends,  if  he 
had  any  (but  commonly  such  poor  runagates  were 
friendless),  or  to  his  parish  officer,  who,  to  enhance 
tlie  effect  of  the  scene,  had  his  station  allotted  to  him 
on  the  outside  of  the  hall  gate. 

These  solemn  pageantries  were  not  played  off  so 
often  as  to  spoil  the  general  mirth  of  the  community. 
We  had  plenty  of  exercise  and  recreation  after  sc1k)o1 
hours  ;  and,  for  myself,  I  must  confess,  that  I  wag 
never  happier,  than  in  them.  The  Upper  and  the 
Lower  Grammar  Schools  were  held  in  the  same  room  ; 
and   an    imaginaiy   line    only    divided    their    bounds. 


FIVE-AND-THIRTY    YEARS   AGO.  37 

Their  character  was  as  different  as  that  of  the  uiliaV* 
itants  on  the  two  sides  of  the  Pyrenees.  The  Rev. 
James  Boyer  was  the  Upper  Master  ;  but  the  Rev. 
Matthew  Field  presided  over  that  portion  of  the  apart- 
ment of  which  I  liad  the  good  fortune  to  be  a  member. 
We  hved  a  hfe  as  careless  as  bu'ds.  We  talked  and 
did  just  what  we  pleased,  and  nobody  molested  us. 
We  carried  an  accidence,  or  a  grammar,  for  form ;  but, 
for  any  trouble  it  gave  us,  we  might  take  two  years  in 
getting  through  the  verbs  deponent,  and  another  two 
in  foro-ettincT  all  that  we  had  learned  about  them. 
There  was  now  and  then  the  formality  of  saying  a 
lesson,  but  if  you  had  not  learned  it,  a  brush  across  the 
shoulders  (just  enough  to  disturb  a  fly)  was  the  sole 
remonstrance.  Field  never  used  the  rod  ;  and  in  tnith 
he  wielded  the  cane  with  no  great  good-will  —  holding 
it  "  like  a  dancer."  It  looked  in  his  hands  rather  like 
an  emblem  than  an  instrument  of  authority ;  and  an 
emblem,  too,  he  was  ashamed  of.  He  was  a  good  easy 
man,  that  did  not  care  to  ruffle  his  own  peace,  nor  per- 
haps set  any  great  consideration  upon  the  value  of 
juvenile  time.  He  came  among  us,  now  and  then,  but 
often  stayed  away  whole  days  from  us  :  and  when  he 
came  it  made  no  difference  to  us  —  he  had  his  private 
room  to  retire  to,  the  short  time  he  stayed,  to  be  out  of 
the  sound  of  our  noise.  Our  mirth  and  uproar  went 
on.  We  had  classics  of  our  own,  without  being  be- 
holden to  "  insolent  Greece  or  haughty  Rome,"  that 
passed  current  among  us  —  Peter  Wilkins  —  the  Ad- 
ventm'es  of  the  Hon.  Captain  Robert  Boyle  —  the 
Fortunate  Blue  Coat  Boy  —  and  the  like.  Or  we  cul- 
tivated a  turn  for  mechanic  and  scientific  operations ; 
•naking  little  sun-dials  of  paper ;  or  weaving  those  in- 


38  CHRIST'S   HOSPITAL 

genions  parentheses  called  cat'-cradles  ;  or  making  diy 
peas  to  dance  npon  tlie  end  of  a  tin  pipe  ;  or  studying 
tlie  art  military  over  that  laudable  game  "  French  and 
English,"  and  a  hundi'ed  other  such  devices  to  pass 
away  the  time  —  mixing  the  useful  with  the  agreeable 
—  as  would  have  made  the  souls  of  Rousseau  and  John 
Locke  chuckle  to  have  seen  us. 

Matthew  Field  belonged  to  that  class  of  modest 
divines  who  affect  to  mix  in  equal  proportion  the 
gentleman^  the  scholar^  and  the  Christian  ;  but,  I  know 
not  how,  the  first  ingredient  is  generally  found  to  be 
the  predominating  dose  in  the  composition.  lie  was 
engaged  in  gay  parties,  or  with  his  courtly  bow  at 
some  episcopal  levee,  when  he  should  have  been  attend- 
ing upon  us.  He  had  for  many  years  the  classical 
charge  of  a  hundred  children,  during  the  four  or  five 
first  years  of  their  education  ;  and  his  very  highest 
form  seldom  proceeded  further  than  two  or  three  of  the 
introductory  fables  of  Phasdrus.  How  things  were  suf- 
fered to  go  on  thus,  I  cannot  guess.  Boyer,  who  was 
the  proper  person  to  have  remedied  these  abuses, 
always  affected,  perhaps  felt,  a  delicacy  in  interfering 
in  a  province  not  strictly  his  own.  I  have  not  been 
without  my  suspicions,  that  he  was  not  altogether  dis- 
pleased at  the  contrast  we  presented  to  his  end  of  the 
school.  We  were  a  sort  of  Helots  to  his  young  Spar- 
tans. He  Avould  sometimes,  with  ironic  deference,  send 
to  borrow  a  rod  of  the  Under  Master,  and  then,  with 
Sardonic  grin,  observe  to  one  of  his  upper  boys  "  how 
neat  and  fresh  the  twigs  looked."  While  his  pale 
students  were  battering  their  brains  over  Xenophon 
and  Plato,  with  a  silence  as  deep  as  that  enjoined  by 
the  Samite,  we  were  enjoying  ourselves  at  our  ease  in 


FIVE-AND-THIRTY   YEARS   AGO.  39 

our  little  Goshen.  We  saw  a  little  into  the  secrets  of 
his  discipline,  and  the  prospect  did  but  the  more  recon- 
cile us  to  our  lot.  His  thunders  rolled  innocuous  for 
us ;  his  storms  came  near,  but  never  touched  us  ;  con- 
trary to  Gideon's  miracle,  while  all  around  were 
drenched,  our  fleece  was  dry.*  His  boys  turned  out 
the  better  scholars  ;  we,  I  suspect,  have  the  advantage 
in  temper.  His  pupils  cannot  speak  of  him  without 
something  of  terror  allaying  their  gratitude  ;  the  re- 
membrance of  Field  comes  back  with  all  the  soothing 
images  of  indolence,  and  summer  slumbers,  and  work 
like  play,  and  innocent  idleness,  and  Elysian  exemp- 
tions, and  life  itself  a  "  playing  holiday." 

Though  sufficiently  removed  fi'om  the  jurisdiction 
of  Boyer,  we  were  near  enough  (as  I  have  said)  to 
understand  a  little  of  his  system.  We  occasionally 
heard  sounds  of  the  Ululantes,  and  caught  glances  of 
Tartarus.  B.  was  a  rabid  pedant.  His  English  style 
was  crampt  to  barbarism.  His  Easter  anthems  (for 
his  duty  obliged  him  to  those  periodical  flights)  were 
grating  as  scrannel  pipes. f  —  He  would  laugh,  ay,  and 
heartily,  but  then  it  must  be  at  Flaccus's  quibble  about 

Rex or  at  the  tr-istis  severitas  in  viiltu,  or  insjneere 

in  patinas,  of  Terence  —  thin  jests,  which  at  their  fii-st 
broaching  could  hardly  have  had  vis  enough  to  move  a 
Roman  muscle.  —  He  had  two  wigs,  both  pedantic,  but 

*  Cowley. 

t  In  this  and  everything  B.  was  the  antiporles  of  his  coadjutor.  Wtiilo 
the  foimer  was  dig;gino:  Ids  brains  for  crude  anthems,  worth  a  pignut,  F. 
■would  be  recreating  his  gentlemanly  fancy  in  the  more  flowery  walks  of 
the  Muses.  A  little  dramatic  effusion  of  his,  under  the  name  of  Vertumnus 
and  Pomona,  is  not  yet  forgotten  by  the  chroniclers  of  that  sort  of  litera- 
-ure.  It  was  accepted  by  Gan-ick,  but  the  town  did  not  give  it  their 
sanction. —  B.  used  to  say  of  it,  in  a  way  of  half-compliment,  half-ir  my, 
that  it  was  too  classical  for  represenlation. 


40  CHRIST'S   HOSPITAL 

of  different  omen.  The  one  serene,  smiling,  fresh 
powdered,  betokening  a  mild  day.  The  other,  an  old, 
discolored,  unkempt,  angiy  caxon,  denoting  frequent 
and  bloody  execution.  Woe  to  the  school,  when  he 
made  his  morning  appearance  in  his  passy^  or  passionate 
wig.  No  comet  expounded  surer.  —  J.  B.  had  a  hea%y 
hand.  I  have  known  him  double  his  knotty  fist  at  a 
poor  trembling  child  (the  maternal  milk  hardly  diy 
upon  its  lips)  with  a  "  Sirrah,  do  you  presume  to  set 
your  wits  at  me  ?  "  —  Nothing  was  more  common  than 
to  see  him  make  a  headlong  entiy  into  the  school-room, 
fi'om  his  inner  recess,  or  libraiy,  and,  with  turbulent 
eye,  singling  out  a  lad,  roar  out,  "  Od's  my  life,  sirrah," 
(his  favorite  adjuration),  "  I  have  a  great  mind  to  whip 
you,"  —  then,  with  as  sudden  a  retractmg  impulse, 
fling  back  into  his  lair  —  and,  after  a  cooling  lapse  of 
some  minutes  (during  which  all  but  the  culprit  had 
totally  forgotten  the  context)  drive  headlong  out  again, 
piecing  out  his  imperfect  sense,  as  if  it  had  been  some 
Devil's  Litany,  with  the  expletory  yell  —  "  and  Jwill, 
too."  —  In  his  gentler  moods,  when  the  rahidm  furor 
was  assuaged,  he  had  resort  to  an  ingenious  method, 
peculiar,  for  what  I  have  heard,  to  himself,  of  whipping 
the  boy,  and  reading  the  Debates,  at  the  same  time ;  a 
paragraph,  and  a  lash  between  ;  which  m  those  times, 
when  parliamentary  oratoiy  was  most  at  a  height  and 
flourishing  in  these  realms,  was  not  calculated  to  im- 
press the  patient  with  a  veneration  for  the  diffuser 
graces  of  rhetoric. 

Once,  and  but  once,  the  uplifted  rod  was  known  to 
fall  ineffectual  fi'om  his  hand  —  wlien  droll  squinting 
VV.  —  having  been  caught  putting  the  inside  of  the 
master's   desk    to  a  use  for  which  the   architect  had 


FIVE-AND-THIRTY   YEARS   AGO.  41 

dearly  not  designed  it,  to  justify  himself,  with  great 
simplicity  averred,  that  he  did  not  know  that  the  thing 
had  been  forewarned.  This  exquisite  irrecognition  of 
any  law  antecedent  to  the  oral  or  declaratory,  struck  so 
irresistibly  upon  the  fancy  of  all  who  heard  it  (the 
pedagogue  himself  not  excepted)  —  that  remission  was 
unavoidable. 

li.  has  given  credit  to  B.'s  great  merits  as  an 
instructor.  Coleridge,  in  his  literary  life,  has  pro- 
nounced a  more  intelligible  and  ample  encomium  on 
them.  The  author  of  the  Country  Spectator  doubts 
not  to  compare  him  with  the  ablest  teachers  of  antiq- 
uity. Perhaps  we  cannot  dismiss  him  better  than 
with  the  pious  ejaculation  of  C.  —  when  he  heard  that 
his  old  master  was  on  his  death-bed :  "  Poor  J.  B.  ! 
—  may  all  his  faults  be  forgiven ;  and  may  he  be 
wafted  to  bliss  by  little  cherub  boys  all  head  and  wings, 
with  no  bottoms  to  reproach  his  sublunary  infirmities." 

Under  him  were  many  good  and  sound  scholars 
bred.  —  First  Grecian  of  my  time  was  Lancelot  Pepys 
Stevens,  kindest  of  boys  and  men,  since  Co-grammar- 
master  (and  inseparable  companion)  with  Dr.  T e. 

What  an  edifying  spectacle  did  this  brace  of  friends 
present  to  those  who  remembered  the  anti-socialities  of 
their  predecessors !  —  You  never  met  the  one  by  chance 
in  the  street  withovit  a  wonder,  which  was  quickly  dis- 
sipated by  the  almost  immediate  sub-appearance  of  the 
other.  Generally  arm-in-arm,  these  kindly  coatljutors 
lightened  for  each  other  the  toilsome  duties  of  their 
profession,  and  when,  in  advanced  age,  one  found  it 
convenient  to  retire,  the  other  was  not  long  in  discover- 
ing that  it  suited  him  to  lay  down  the  fasces  also.  Oh, 
it  is  pleasant,  as  it  is  rare,  to  find  the  same  ann  linked 


42  CHRIST'S    HCSriTAL 

in  yours  at  forty,  which  at  thirteen  helped  it  to  turn 
over  the  Cicero  De  Amicitid,  or  some  tale  of  Antique 
Friendship,  which  the  young  heart  even  then  was  burn- 
ing to  anticipate  !  —  Co-Grecian  with  S.  was  Th , 

who  has  since  executed  with  ability  various  diplomatic 

functions  at  the  Northern  courts.     Th was  a  tall, 

dark,  saturnine  youth,  sparing  of  speech,  with  raven 
locks.  —  Thomas  Fanshaw  Middleton  followed  him 
(now  Bishop  of  Calcutta),  a  scholar  and  a  gentleman 
in  his  teens.  He  has  the  reputation  of  an  excellent 
critic ;  and  is  author  (besides  the  Country  Spectator) 
of  a  Treatise  on  the  Greek  Article,  against  Sharpe. 
M.  is  said  to  bear  his  mitre  high  in  India,  where  the 
regni  novitas  (I  dare  say)  sufficiently  justifies  the  bear- 
ing. A  humility  quite  as  primitive  as  that  of  Jewel  or 
Hooker  might  not  be  exactly  fitted  to  impress  the 
minds  of  those  Ano;lo-Asiatic  diocesans  with  a  rever- 
ence  for  home  institutions,  and  the  church  which  those 
fathers  watered.  The  manners  of  M.  at  school,  though 
firm,  were  mild  and  unassuming.  —  Next  to  M.  (if  not 
senior  to  him)  was  Richards,  author  of  the  Aboriginal 
Britons,  the  most  spirited  of  the  Oxford  Prize  Poems ; 

a  pale,  studious  Grecian.  —  Then  followed  poor  S , 

ill-fated  M !  of  these  the  Muse  is  silent. 

Finding  some  of  Edward's  race 
Unhappy,  pass  their  annals  by. 

Come  back  into  memory,  like  as  thou  wert  in  the 
dayspring  of  thy  fancies,  with  hope  like  a  fiery  column 
before  thee — the  dark  pillar  not  yet  turned  —  Samuel 
Taylor  Coler.'lge  —  Logician,  JNIetaphysician,  Bard !  — 
How  have  I  seen  the  casual  passer  through  the  Clois- 
ters stand  still,  entranced   with   aJmiration  (while  he 


FIVE-AND-TIIIKTY   YEARS   AGO.  43 

weighed  the  disproportion  between  tlie  speech  and  the 
garb  of  the  young  Mirandula),  to  hear  thee  unfold,  in 
thy  deep  and  sweet  intonations,  the  mysteries  of  Jam- 
bh'chus,  or  Plotinus  (for  even  in  those  years  thou 
waxedst   not   pale  at  such   philosophic    draughts),   or 

reciting  Homer  in  his  Greek,  or  Pindar while  the 

walls  of  the  old  Grey  Friars  reechoed  to  the  accents 
of  the  inspired  chaHty-hoy ! — Many  were  the  "wit- 
combats,"  (to  dally  awhile  with  the  words  of  old  Fid- 

ler),  between   him  and  C.  V.  Le  G ,  "  which  two 

I  behold  like  a  Spanish  great  galleon,  and  an  English 
man-of-war;  Master  Coleridge,  like  the  former,  was 
built  far  higher  in  learning,  solid,  but  slow  in  his  per- 
formances. C.  V.  L.,  with  the  English  man-of-war, 
lesser  in  bulk,  but  lighter  in  sailing,  could  turn  with  all 
tides,  tack  about,  and  take  advantage  of  all  winds,  by 
the  quickness  of  his  wit  and  invention." 

Nor  shalt  thou,  their  compeer,  be  quickly  forgotten, 
Allen,  with  the  cordial  smile,  and  still  more  cordial 
laugh,  with  which  thou  wert  wont  to  make  the  old 
Cloisters  shake,  in  thy  cognition  of  some  poignant  jest 
of  theirs  ;  or  the  anticipation  of  some  more  material, 
and,  peradventure,  practical  one,  of  thine  own.  Ex- 
tinct are  those  smiles,  with  that  beautiful  countenance, 
with  which  (for  thou  wert  the  Nireus  formosus  of  the 
school),  in  the  days  of  thy  maturer  waggeiy,  thou  didst 
disarm  the  wrath  of  infiu'iated  town-damsel,  who,  in- 
censed by  provoking  pinch,  turning  tigress-like  round, 
suddenly  converted  by  thy  angel-look,  exclianged  the 

half-formed   terrible  "  bl ,"  for  a  frontier   creetins 

—  "  bless  thy  handsome  face  !  " 

Next  follow  two,  who  ought  to  be  now  alive,  and  the 
friends   of  Elia  —  the  junior  Le  G and  F • 


44  THE  TWO  RACES    -x    -^tN. 

who  impelled,  the  former  by  a  roving  temper,  the  latter 
by  too  quick  a  sense  of  neglect  —  ill  capable  of  endur- 
ing the  slights  poor  Sizars  are  S9metimes  subject  to  m 
our  seats  of  learnino;  —  exchanoed  their  Alma  Mater 
for  the  camp ;  perishing,  one  by  climate,  and  one  on 
the  plains  of  Salamanca :  —  Le  G ,  sanguine,  vola- 
tile,   sweet-natured ;    F ,    dogged,  faithful,    antici- 

pative  of  insult,  warm-hearted,  with  something  of  the 
old  Roman  height  about  him. 

Fine,  frank-hearted  Fr ,  the  present  master  of 

Hertford,  with  Marmaduke  T ,  mildest  of  Mission- 
aries —  and  both  my  good  friends  still  —  close  the  cata- 
logue of  Grecians  m  my  time. 


THE  TWO  RACES   OF  MEN. 

The  human  species,  according  to  the  best  theoiy  I 
can  form  of  it,  is  composed  of  two  distinct  races,  the 
men  who  borrow,  and  the  men  who  lend.  To  these 
two  original  diversities  may  be  reduced  all  those  im- 
pertinent classifications  of  Gothic  and  Celtic  tribes, 
white  men,  black  men,  red  men.  All  the  dwellers 
upon  earth,  "  Parthians,  and  Medes,  and  Elamites," 
flock  hither,  and  do  naturally  fall  in  with  one  or  other 
of  these  primary  distinctions.  The  infinite  superiority 
of  the  former,  which  I  choose  to  designate  as  the  (/reat 
race^  is  discernible  in  their  figure,  port,  and  a  certain 
instinctive  sovereignty.     The  latter  are  born  degraded. 


THE  TWO   RACES   OF   MEN  45 

**  He  shall  serve  his  brethren."  There  is  something  in 
the  air  of  one  of  this  cast,  lean  and  suspicious  ;  con- 
trasting with  the  open,  trusting,  generous  manners  of 
the  other. 

Observe  who  have  been  the  greatest  boiTowers  of  all 
ages  —  Alcibiades  —  Falstaff —  Sir  Richard  Steele  — 
our  late  incomparable  Brinsley  —  what  a  family  like- 
ness in  all  four ! 

What  a  careless,  even  deportment  hath  your  bor- 
rower !  what  rosy  gills !  what  a  beautiful  reliance 
on  Providence  doth  he  manifest,  —  taking  no  move 
thought  than  lilies  !  What  contempt  for  money,  — 
accounting  it  (yours  and  mine  especially)  no  better 
than  dross !  What  a  liberal  confounding  of  those 
pedantic  distinctions  of  meum  and  taum !  or  rather, 
what  a  noble  simplification  of  language  (beyond 
Tooke),  resolving  these  su])posed  opposites  into  one 
clear,  intelligible  pronoun  adjective  !  —  What  near  ap- 
proaches doth  he  make  to  the  primitive  community^  — 
to  the  extent  of  one-half  of  the  principle  at  least. 

He  is  the  true  taxer  who  "  calleth  all  the  world  up 
to  be  taxed ;  "  and  the  distance  is  as  vast  between  him 
and  one  of  us,  as  subsisted  between  the  Augustan 
Majesty  and  the  poorest  obolary  Jew  that  paid  it 
tribute-pittance  at  Jerusalem  !  —  His  exactions,  too, 
have  such  a  cheerfiil,  voluntary  air  !  So  far  removed 
from  your  sour  parochial  or  state-gatherers,  —  those 
inkhorn  varlets,  who  carry  their  want  of  welcome  in 
their  faces !  He  cometh  to  you  with  a  smile,  and 
troubleth  you  with  no  receipt ;  confining  himself  to  no 
set  season.  Every  day  is  his  Candlemas,  or  his  Feast 
of  Holy  Michael.  He  applieth  the  lene  tormentum  of  a 
pleasant  look  to  your  purse,  —  wliich  to  that  gentle 


46  THE   TWO   RACES   OF   MEN. 

warmth  expands  her  silken  leaves,  as  naturally  as  the 
cloak  of  the  traveller,  for  which  sun  and  wind  con- 
tended !  He  is  the  true  Propontic  which  never  ebbeth  ! 
The  sea  which  taketh  handsomely  at  each  man's  hand. 
In  vain  the  victim,  whom  he  delighteth  to  honor, 
struggles  with  destiny ;  he  is  in  the  net.  Lend  there- 
fore cheerfully,  O  man  ordained  to  lend  —  that  thou 
lose  not  in  the  end,  with  thy  worldly  penny,  the  rever- 
sion promised.  Combine  not  preposterously  in  thine 
own  person  the  penalties  of  Lazarus  and  of  Dives !  — 
but,  when  thou  seest  the  proper  authority  coming,  meet 
it  smilingly,  as  it  were  half-way.  Come,  a  handsome 
sacrifice  !  See  how  light  he  makes  of  it !  Strain  not 
courtesies  with  a  noble  enemy. 

Reflections  like  the  foregoing  were  forced  upon  my 
mind  by  the  death  of  my  old  friend,  Ralph  Bigod,  Esq., 
who  parted  this  life,  on  Wednesday  evening;  dying, 
as  he  had  lived,  without  much  trouble.  He  boasted 
himself  a  descendant  fi-om  mighty  ancestors  of  that 
name,  who  heretofore  held  ducal  dignities  in  this  realm. 
In  his  actions  and  sentiments  he  belied  not  the  stock  to 
which  he  pretended.  Early  in  life  he  found  himself 
invested  with  ample  revenues  ;  which,  with  that  noble 
disinterestedness  which  I  have  noticed  as  inherent  in 
men  of  the  great  race,  he  took  almost  immediate '  meas- 
ures entirely  to  dissipate  and  bring  to  nothing ;  for 
there  is  somethino;  revolting  in  the  idea  of  a  kino;  hold- 
ing  a  private  purse;  and  the  thoughts  of  Bigod  were 
all  regal.  Thus  furnished  by  the  veiy  act  of  disfurnish- 
ment ;  getting  rid  of  the  cumbersome  luggage  of  riches, 
more  apt  (as  one  sings) 

To  slacken  virtue,  and  abate  her  edge, 

Than  pi'ompt  her  to  do  aught  may  merit  praise. 


THE  TWO  RACES   OF  MEN.  47 

he  set  forth,  like  some  Alexander,  upon  his  great  enter- 
prise, "  borrowing  and  to  borrow  !  " 

In  his  periegesis,  or  triumphant  progress  throughout 
this  island,  it  lias  been  calculated  that  he  laid  a  tythe 
part  of  the  inhabitants  under  contribution.  I  reject 
this  estimate  as  greatly  exaggerated :  —  but  having  had 
the  honor  of  accompanying  my  friend  divers  times,  in 
his  perambulations  about  this  vast  city,  I  own  I  was 
greatly  struck  at  first  with  the  prodigious  number  of 
faces  we  met^  who  claimed  a  sort  of  respectflil  acquaint- 
ance with  us.  He  was  one  day  so  obliging  as  to  ex- 
plain the  phenomenon.  It  seems,  these  were  his  trib- 
utaries ;  feeders  of  his  exchequer ;  gentlemen,  his 
good  friends  (as  he  was  pleased  to  express  himself,)  to 
whom  he  had  occasionally  been  beholden  for  a  loan. 
Their  multitudes  did  no  way  disconcert  him.  He 
rather"  took  a  pride  in  numbering  them;  and,  with 
Comus,  seemed  pleased  to  be  "  stocked  with  so  fair  a 
herd." 

With  such  sources,  it  was  a  wonder  how  he  contrived 
to  keep  his  treasury  always  empty.  He  did  it  by  force 
of  an  aphorism,  which  he  had  often  in  his  mouth,  that 
"  money  kept  longer  than  three  days'  stinks."  So  he 
made  use  of  it  while  it  was  fresh.  A  good  part  he 
drank  away  (for  he  was  an  excellent  toss-pot)  ;  some 
he  gave  away,  the  rest  he  threw  away,  literally  tossing 
and  hurling  it  violently  from  him  —  as  boys  do  burrs, 
or  as  if  it  had  been  infectious,  —  into  ponds,  or  ditches, 
or  deep  holes,  inscrutable  cavities  of  the  earth  ;  or  he 
would  buiy  it  (where  he  would  never  seek  it  again) 
by  a  river's  side  under  some  bank,  which  (he  would 
facetiously  observe)  paid  no  interest  —  but  out  away 
from  him  it  must  go  peremptorily,  as  Hagar's  offspring 


48  THE   TWO   RACES   OF   MEN. 

into  the  wilderness,  while  it  was  sweet.  lie  never 
missed  it.  The  streams  were  perennial  which  fed  his 
fisc.  When  new  supplies  became  necessary  ;  the  first 
person  that  had  the  felicity  to  fall  in  with  him,  friend 
or  stranger,  was  sure  to  contribute  to  the  deficiency. 
For  Bigod  had  an  undeniable  way  with  him.  He  had 
a  cheerful,  open  exterior,  a  quick  jovial  eye,  a  bald 
forehead,  just  touched  with  gray  (cana  fides).  He 
anticipated  no  excuse,  and  found  none.  And,  waiving 
for  a  while  my  theory  as  to  the  great  race,,  I  would  put 
it  to  the  most  untheorizing  reader,  who  may  at  times 
have  disposable  coin  in  his  pocket,  whether  it  is  not 
more  repugnant  to  the  kindliness  of  his  nature  to  reftise 
such  a  one  as  I  am  describing,  then  to  say  no  to  a  poor 
petitionary  rogue  (your  bastard  borrower),  who,  by  his 
mumping  visnomy,  tells  you,  that  he  expects  nothing 
better  ;  and,  therefore,  whose  preconceived  notions  and 
expectations  you  do  in  reality  so  much  less  shock  in  the 
refusal. 

When  I  think  of  this  man  ;  his  fiery  glow  of  heart , 
his  swell  of  feeling  ;  how  magnificent,  how  ideal  he 
was ;  how  great  at  the  midnight  hour  ;  and  when  I 
compare  with  him  the  companions  with  Avhom  I  have 
associated  since,  I  grudo-e  the  savini;  of  a  few  idle 
ducats,  and  think  that  I  am  fallen  into  the  society  of 
lenders,,  and  little  men. 

To  one  like  Elia,  whose  treasures  are  rather  cased  in 
l(;ather  covers  than  closed  in  iron  coffers,  there  is  a 
class  of  alienators  more  formidable  than  that  which  I 
have  touched  upon  ;  I  mean  your  borrowers  of  books  — 
those  mutilators  of  collections,  spoilers  of  the  symmetry 
of  shelves,  and  creators  of  odd  volumes.  There  is 
Comberbatch,  matchless  in  his  de]>redations  I 


THE   TWO   RACES   OF  MEN.  49 

That  foul  gap  in  the  bottom  shelf  facing  you,  like  a 
great  eye-tooth  knocked  out  —  (you  are  now  with  me 

m  my  little  back  study  in  Bloomsbury,  reader !) 

with  the  huge  Switzer-like  tomes  on  each  side  (like  the 
Guildhall  giants,  in  their  reformed  posture,  guardant 
of  nothing)  once  held  the  tallest  of  my  folios,  Ojjera 
Bonaventurce,  choice  and  massy  divinity,  to  which  its 
two  supporters  (school  divinity  also,  but  of  a  lessor 
calibre,  —  Bellarmine,  and  Holy  Thomas),  showed  but 
as  dwarfs,  —  itself  an  Ascapart !  —  that  Comberbatch 
abstracted  upon  the  faith  of  a  theory  he  holds,  which 
is  more  easy,  I  confess,  for  me  to  suffer  by  than  to 
refute,  namely,  that  "  the  title  to  property  in  a  book 
(my  Bonaventure,  for  instance),  is  in  exact  ratio  to  the 
claimant's  powers  of  miderstanding  and  appreciating 
the  same."  Should  he  go  on  acting  upon  this  theory, 
which  of  our  shelves  is  safe  ? 

The  slight  vacuum  in  the  left-hand  case  —  two  shelves 
from  the  ceiling  —  scarcely  distinguishable  but  by  the 
quick  eye  of  a  loser  —  was  whilom  the  commodious 
resting-place  of  Brown  on  Urn  Burial.  C.  will  hardly 
allege  that  he  knows  more  about  that  treatise  than  I  do, 
who  introduced  it  to  him,  and  was,  indeed,  the  first 
(of  the  moderns)  to  discover  its  beauties  —  but  so  have 
I  known  a  foolish  lover  to  praise  his  mistress  in  the 
presence  of  a  rival  more  qualified  to  carry  her  off"  than 
himself.  Just  below,  Dodsley's  dramas  want  their 
fourth  volume,  where  Vittoiia  Corombona  is.  The 
remaininor  nine  are  as  distastefid  as  Priam's  refuse 
sons,  when  the  Fates  horroived  Hector.  Here  stood 
the  Anatomy  of  Melancholy,  in  sober  state.  Tliei'e 
loitered  the  Complete  Angler ;  quiet  as  in  life,  by 
some  stream  side.     In   yonder  nook,  John  Biuicle,  a 


50  THE  TWO   RACES   OF  MEN. 

widower-volume,  with  "  eyes  closed,"  mourns  liis  rav 
islied  mate. 

One  justice  I  must  do  my  friend,  that  if  he  some- 
times, like  the  sea,  sweeps  away  a  treasure,  at  another 
time,  sea-like,  he  throws  up  as  rich  an  equivalent  to 
match  it.  I  have  a  small  under-collection  of  this 
nature  (my  friend's  gatherings  in  his  various  calls), 
picked  up,  he  has  forgotten  at  what  odd  places,  and 
deposited  with  as  little  memory  at  mine.  I  take  in 
these  orphans,  the  twice-deserted.  These  proselytes 
of  the  gate  are  welcome  as  the  true  Hebrews.  There 
they  stand  in  conjunction ;  natives,  and  naturalized. 
The  latter  seem  as  little  disposed  to  inquire  out  their 
tnie  lineao-e  as  I  am.  —  I  charge  no  warehouse-room 
for  these  deodands,  nor  shall  ever  put  myself  to  the 
imgentlemanly  trouble  of  advertising  a  sale  of  them  to 
pay  expenses. 

To  lose  a  volume  to  C.  carries  some  sense  and  mean- 
in  o-  in  it.  You  are  sure  that  he  will  make  one  hearty 
meal  on  your  viands,  if  he  can  give  no  account  of  the 
platter  after  it.  But  what  moved  thee,  wayward,  spite- 
ful K.,  to  be  so  importunate  to  carry  off  with  thee,  in 
ppite  of  tears  and  adjurations  to  thee  to  forbear,  the 
Letters  of  that  princely  woman,  the  thrice  noble  Mar- 
garet Newcastle  ?  —  knowing  at  the  time,  and  knowing 
that  I  knew  also,  thou  most  assuredly  wouldst  never 
turn  over  one  leaf  of  the  illustrious  folio  :  —  what  but 
the  mere  spirit  of  contradiction,  and  childish  love  of 
getting  the  better  of  thy  friend  ?  —  Then,  worst  cut  of 
all !  to  transport  it  with  thee  to  the  Gallican  land  — 

Unworthy  land  to  harbor  such  a  sweetness, 

A  virtue  in  which  all  ennobling  thoughts  dwelt, 

Pure  thoughts,  kind  thoughts,  high  thoughts,  her  sex's  wonder  I 


NEW  YEAR'S  EVE.  51 

hadst  tliou  not  thy  play-books,  and  books  of  jests 

and  fancies,  about  thee,  to  keep  thee  meny,  even  as 
thou  keepest  all  companies  with  thy  quips  and  mirthful 
tales  ?  Child  of  the  Green-room,  it  was  unkindly  done 
of  thee.  Thy  wife,  too,  that  part-French,  better-part 
Englishwoman  !  —  that  she  could  fix  upon  no  othei 
treatise  to  bear  away,  in  kindly  token  of  remembering 
us,  than  the  works  of  Fulke  Greville,  Lord  Brook  — 
of  which  no  Frenchman,  nor  woman  of  France,  Italy, 
or  England,  was  ever  by  nature  constituted  to  compre- 
hend a  tittle  !  —  Was  there  not  Zimmerman  on  Solitude  ? 
Reader,  if  haply  thou  art  blessed  with  a  moderate 
collection,  be  shy  of  showing  it ;  or  if  thy  heart  over- 
floweth  to  lend  them,  lend  thy  books ;  but  let  it  be  to 
such  a  one  as  S.  T.  C  —  he  will  return  them  (gener- 
ally anticipating  the  time  appointed)  with  usury ;  en- 
riched with  annotations  tripling  their  value.  I  have 
had  experience.  Many  are  these  precious  MSS.  of  his 
—  (in  matter  oftentimes,  and  almost  in  quantity  not 
unfrequently,  vying  with  the  originals)  in  no  very 
clerkly  hand  —  legible  in  my  Daniel ;  in  old  Burton  ; 
in  Sir  Thomas  Browne  ;  and  those  abstruser  cogita- 
tions  of  the  Greville,  now,  alas !  wandering  in  Pagan 
lands.  —  I  counsel  thee,  shut  not  thy  heart,  nor  thy 
library,  against  S.  T.  C. 


NEW  YEAR'S   EVE. 


Every  man  hath  two  birthdays :  two  days,  at  least, 
in  every  year,  which  set  him  upon  revolving  the  lapse 


52  NEW   YEAR'S  EVE. 

of  time,  as  it  affects  his  mortal  duration.  The  one  is 
that  which  in  an  especial  manner  he  termeth  Ms.  In 
the  gradual  desuetude  of  old  observances,  this  custom 
of  solemnizing  our  proper  birthday  hath  nearly  passed 
away,  or  is  left  to  childi'en,  who  reflect  nothing  at  all 
about  the  matter,  nor  understand  anything  in  it  beyond 
cake  and  orange.  But  the  bh'th  of  a  New  Year  is  of 
an  interest  too  wide  to  be  preteraiitted  by  king  or  cob- 
bler. No  one  ever  regarded  the  first  of  January  with 
indifference.  It  is  that  from  which  all  date  their  time, 
and  count  upon  what  is  left.  It  is  the  nativity  of  our 
common  Adam. 

Of  all  sound  of  all  bells  —  (bells,  the  music  nighest 
bordering  upon  heaven)  —  most  solemn  and  touching 
is  the  peal  which  rings  out  the  Old  Year.  I  never 
hear  it  without  a  gathering-up  of  my  mind  to  a  con- 
centration of  all  the  images  tliat  have  been  difRised 
over  the  past  twelvemonth ;  all  I  have  done  or  suffered, 
performed  or  neglected  —  in  that  regretted  time.  I 
beo-in  to  know  its  Avorth,  as  when  a  person  dies.  It 
takes  a  personal  color ;  nor  was  it  a  poetical  flight  in  a 
contemporary,  when  he  exclaimed, 

I  saw  the  skirts  of  the  departing  Year. 

It  is  no  more  than  what  in  sober  sadness  eveiy  one 
of  us  seems  to  be  conscious  of,  in  that  awftd  leave- 
taking.  I  am  sure  I  felt  it,  and  all  felt  it  with  me, 
last  night ;  though  some  of  my  companions  affected 
rather  to  manifest  an  exhilaration  at  the  birth  of  the 
coming  year,  than  any  veiy  tender  regrets  for  the 
decease  of  its  predecessor.  But  I  am  none  of  those 
who  — 

Welcome  the  coming,  speed  the  parting  guest. 


NEW   YEAR'S  EVE.  53 

I  am  naturally,  beforehand,  sliy  of  novelties  ;  new 
books,  new  faces,  new  years  —  from  some  mental  twist 
which  makes  it  difficult  in  me  to  face  the  prospective. 
I  have  almost  ceased  to  hope ;  and  am  sanguine  only 
in  the  prospects  of  other  (former)  years.  I  plunge 
into  forecrone  visions  and  conclusions.  I  encounter 
pellmell  with  past  disappointments.  I  am  armor- 
proof  against  old  discouragements.  I  forgive,  or  over- 
come in  fancy,  old  adversaries.  I  play  over  again  for 
love^  as  the  gamesters  phrase  it,  games,  for  wliich  I 
once  paid  so  dear.  I  would  scarce  now  have  any  of 
those  untoward  accidents  and  events  of  my  life  re- 
versed. I  would  no  more  alter  them  than  the  incidents 
of  some  well-contrived  novel.  Methinks  it  is  Letter 
that  I  should  have  pined  away  seven  of  my  golden  est 
years,  when  I  was  thrall  to  the  fair  hair,  and  fairer 
eyes,  of  Alice  W — n,  than  that  so  passionate  a  love- 
adventure  should  be  lost.  It  was  better  that  our  family 
should  have  missed  that  legacy,  which  old  Dorrell 
cheated  us  of,  than  that  I  should  have  at  this  moment 
two  thousand  pounds  in  hanco^  and  be  without  the  idea 
of  that  specious  old  rogue. 

In  a  degree  beneath  manhood,  it  is  my  infirmity  to 
look  back  upon  those  early  days.  Do  I  advance  a 
paradox,  when  I  say,  that,  skipping  over  the  interven- 
tion of  forty  years,  a  man  may  have  leave  to  love  liim- 
self  without  the  imputation  of  self-love  ? 

If  I  know  aught  of  myself,  no  one  whose  mind  is 
introspective  —  and  mine  is  painftilly  so  —  can  have  a 
less  respect  for  his  present  identity,  than  I  have  for  the 
man  Elia.  I  know  him  to  be  light,  and  vain,  and 
humorsome  ;  a  notorious  .  .  .  ;  addicted  to  .... ; 
iverse  from  comisel,  neither  takmg  it  nor  offering  it ; 


54  NEW   YEAR'S   EVE. 

— ...  besides  ;  a  stammering  buffoon  ;  what  you 
will ;  lay  it  on,  and  spare  not ;  I  subscribe  to  it  all, 
and  much  more  than  thou  canst  be  willing  to  lay  at  his 
door — but  for  the  child  Eha,  that  "other  me,"  there, 
in  the  background  —  I  must  take  leave  to  cherish  the 
remembrance  of  that  young  master  —  with  as  little 
reference,  I  protest,  to  this  stupid  changeling  of  five- 
and-forty,  as  if  it  had  been  a  child  of  some  other  house, 
and  not  of  my  parents.  I  can  cry  over  its  patient 
smallpox  at  five,  and  rougher  medicaments.  I  can 
lay  its  poor  fevered  head  upon  the  sick  pillow  at 
Christ's,  and  wake  Avith  it  in  surprise  at  the  gentle 
posture  of  maternal  tenderness  hanging  over  it,  that 
unknown  had  watched  its  sleep.  I  know  how  it 
shrank  from  any  the  least  color  of  falsehood.  God 
help  thee,  Elia,  how  art  thou  changed !  —  Thou  art 
sophisticated.  —  I  know  how  honest,  how  courageous 
(for  a  weakling)  it  was  —  how  religious,  how  imagina- 
tive, how  hopeful !  From  what  have  I  not  fallen,  if 
the  child  I  remember  was  indeed  myself,  —  and  not 
some  dissembling  guardian,  presenting  a  false  identity, 
to  give  the  rule  to  my  unpractised  steps,  and  regulate 
the  tone  of  my  moral  being  ! 

That  I  am  fond  of  indulging,  beyond  a  hope  of  sym- 
pathy, in  such  retrospection,  may  be  the  symptom  of 
some  sickly  idiosyncrasy.  Or  is  it  owing  to  another 
cause :  simply,  that  being  without  wife  or  family,  I 
have  not  learned  to  project  myself  enough  out  of  my- 
self; and  having  no  offspring  of  my  own  to  dally  with, 
I  turn  back  upon  memory,  and  adopt  my  own  eai'ly 
idea,  as  my  heir  and  favorite  ?  If  these  speculations 
seem  fantastical  to  thee,  reader  —  (a  busy  man,  per- 
chance), if  I  tread  out  of  the  way  of  thy  sympathy, 


NEW   YEAR'S   EVE.  55 

and  am  singularly  conceited  only,  I  retire,  impenetrable 
to  ridicule,  under  the  phantom-cloud  of  Elia. 

The  elders,  with  whom  I  was  brought  up,  were  of  a 
character  not  likely  to  let  slip  the  sacred  observance  of 
any  old  institution  ;  and  the  ringing  out  of  the  Old 
Year  was  kept  by  them  with  circumstances  of  peculiar 
ceremony.  —  In  those  days  the  sound  of  those  midnight 
chimes,  though  it  seemed  to  raise  hilarity  in  all  around 
me,  never  failed  to  bring  a  train  of  pensive  imagery 
mto  my  fancy.  Yet  I  then  scarce  conceived  what  it 
meant,  or  thought  of  it  as  a  reckoning  that  concerned 
me.  Not  childhood  alone,  but  the  young  man  till 
thirty,  never  feels  practically  that  he  is  mortal.  He 
knows  it  indeed,  and,  if  need  were,  he  could  preach  a 
homily  on  the  fragility  of  life  ;  but  he  brings  it  not 
home  to  himself,  any  more  than  in  a  hot  June  we  can 
appropriate  to  our  imagination  the  freezing  days  of 
December.  But  now,  shall  I  confess  a  ti-uth  ?  —  I  feel 
these  audits  but  too  powerfully.  I  begin  to  count  the 
probabilities  of  my  duration,  and  to  grudge  at  the  ex- 
penditure of  moments  and  shortest  periods,  like  misers' 
farthings.  In  proportion  as  the  years  both  lessen  and 
shorten,  I  set  more  count  upon  their  periods,  and  would 
fain  lay  my  ineffectual  finger  upon  the  spoke  of  the 
great  wheel.  I  am  not  content  to  pass  away  "  like 
a  weaver's  shuttle."  Those  metaphors  solace  me  not, 
nor  sweeten  the  unpalatable  draught  of  mortality.  I 
care  not  to  be  carried  with  the  tide,  that  smoothly 
bears  human  life  to  eternity ;  and  reluct  at  the  inevi- 
table course  of  destiny.  I  am  in  love  with  this  green 
earth  ;  the  face  of  town  and  country ;  the  unspeakable 
rural  solitudes,  and  the  sweet  security  of  streets.  I 
would  set  up  my  tabernacle  here.     I  am  content  to 


56  NEW  YEAR'S   EVE. 

stand  still  at  tlie  age  to  which  I  am  arrived  ;  I,  and  my 
friends ;  to  be  no  younger,  no  richer,  no  handsomer.  I 
do  not  want  to  be  weaned  by  age ;  or  di'op,  like  mel- 
low fruit,  as  they  say,  into  the  grave.  —  Any  alteration, 
on  this  earth  of  mine,  in  diet  or  in  lodging,  puzzles  and 
discomposes  me.  My  household-gods  plant  a  terrible 
fixed  foot,  and  are  iiot  rooted  up  without  blood.  They 
do  not  willingly  seek  Lavinian  shores.  A  new  state  of 
\)eing  staggers  me. 

Sun,  and  sky,  and  breeze,  and  solitary  walks,  and 
summer  holidays,  and  the  greenness  of  fields,  and  the 
delicious  juices  of  meats  and  fishes,  and  society,  and  the 
cheerful  glass,  and  candlelight,  and  fireside  conversa- 
tions, and  innocent  vanities,  and  jests,  and  irony  itself 
—  do  these  thino-s  o-o  out  with  life  ? 

Can  a  ghost  laugh,  or  shake  his  gaunt  sides,  when 
you  are  pleasant  with  him  ? 

And  you,  my  midnight  darlings,  my  Folios  !  must  I 
part  with  the  intense  dehght  of  having  you  (huge  arm- 
fiils)  in  my  embraces  ?  Must  knowledge  come  to  me, 
if  it  come  at  all,  by  some  awkward  experiment  of  in- 
tuition, and  no  longer  by  this  familiar  process  of  read- 
ing? 

Shall  I  enjoy  friendships  there,  wanting  the  smiling 
indications  which  point  me  to  them  here,  —  the  recog- 
nizable face  —  the  "  SAveet  assurance  of  a  look  "  —  ? 

In  winter  this  intolerable  dismclination  to  dying  — 
to  give  it  its  mildest  name  —  does  more  especially  haunt 
and  beset  me.  In  a  genial  August  noon,  beneath  a 
sweltenng  sky,  death  is  almost  problematic.  At  those 
times  do  such  poor  snakes  as  myself  enjoy  an  immor- 
tality. Then  we  expand  and  bourgeon.  Tlien  we  are 
as  strong  again,  as  valiant  again,  as  wise  again,  and  a 


NEW   YEAR'S   EVE.  57 

great  deal  taller.  The  blast  that  nips  and  shrinks  me, 
puts  me  in  thoughts  of  death.  All  tilings  allied  to 
the  insubstantial,  wait  upon  that  master-feeling ;  cold, 
numbness,  dreams,  perplexity ;  moonlight  itself,  with 
its  shadowy  and  spectral  appearances,  —  that  cold  ghost 
of  the  sun,  or  Phoebus'  sickly  sister,  like  that  innutri- 
tions one  denounced  in  the  Canticles  :  —  I  am  none  of 
her  minions  —  I  hold  with  the  Persian. 

Whatsoever  thwarts,  or  puts  me  out  of  my  way, 
brings  death  into  my  mind.  All  partial  evils,  like 
humors,  run  into  that  capital  plague-sore.  —  I  have 
heard  some  profess  an  indifference  to  life.  Such  hail 
the  end  of  their  existence  as  a  port  of  refuge ;  and 
speak  of  the  grave  as  of  some  soft  anns,  in  which  they 
may  slumber  as  on  a  pillow.  Some  have  wooed  death 
but  out  upon  thee,  I  say,  thou  foul,  ugly  phan- 
tom !  I  detest,  abhor,  execrate,  and  (with  Friar  John) 
give  thee  to  sixscore  thousand  devils,  as  in  no  instance 
to  be  excused  or  tolerated,  but  shunned  as  an  universal 
viper ;  to  be  branded,  proscribed,  and  spoken  evil  of ! 
In  no  way  can  I  be  brought  to  digest  thee,  thou  thin, 
melancholy  Privation^  or  more  frightful  and  confound- 
ing Positive  ! 

Those  antidotes,  prescribed  against  the  fear  of  thee, 
are  altogether  fi'igid  and  insulting,  like  thyself.  For 
what  satisfaction  hath  a  man,  that  he  shall  "  lie  down 
with  kings  and  emperors  in  death,"  who  in  his  lifetime 
never  greatly  coveted  the  society  of  such  bedfellows  ? 

—  or,  forsooth,  that  "  so  shall  the  fairest  face  appear?  " 

—  why,  to  comfort  me,  must  Alice  W — n  be  a  goblin  ? 
More  than  all,  I  conceive  disgust  at  those  impertinent 
and  misbecoming  familiaintics,  inscribed  upon  your 
ordinary  tombstones.     Eveiy  dead  man  must  take  upon 


58  NEW   YEAR'S   EVE. 

himself  to  be  lecturing  me  with  his  odious  truism,  that 
"  Such  as  he  now  is  I  must  shortly  be."  Not  so  shortly, 
friend,  perhaps  as  thou  imaginest.  In  the  mean  time  1 
am  alive.  I  move  about.  I  am  worth  twenty  of  thee. 
Know  thy  betters  !  Thy  New  Years'  days  are  past.  I 
survive,  a  jolly  candidate  for  1821.  Another  cup  of 
wine  —  and  while  that  turncoat  bell,  that  just  now 
mournfully  chanted  the  obsequies  of  1820  departed,  with 
changed  notes  lustily  rings  in  a  successor,  let  us  attune 
to  its  peal  the  song  made  on  a  like  occasion,  by  hearty, 
cheerful  Mr.  Cotton. 

THE  NEW  YEAR. 

Hark,  the  cock  crows,  and  yon  bright  star 

Tells  us,  the  day  himself 's  not  far; 

And  see  where,  breaking  from  the  night, 

He  gilds  the  western  hills  with  light. 

With  him  old  Janus  doth  appear, 

Peeping  into  the  future  year, 

With  such  a  look  as  seems  to  say, 

The  prospect  is  not  good  that  way. 

Thus  do  we  rise  ill  sights  to  see, 

And  'gainst  ourselves  to  prophesy; 

When  the  prophetic  fear  of  things 

A  more  tormenting  mischief  brings, 

More  full  of  soul-tormenting  gall 

Than  direst  mischiefs  can  befall. 

But  stay !  but  stay !  methinks  my  sight, 

Better  inform'd  by  clearer  light, 

Discerns  sereneness  in  that  brow. 

That  all  contracted  seem'd  but  now. 

His  reverv^'d  face  may  show  distaste, 

And  frown  upon  the  iUs  are  past; 

But  that  which  this  way  looks  is  clear, 

And  smiles  upon  the  New-born  Year. 

He  looks  too  from  a  place  so  high. 

The  Year  lies  open  to  his  eye; 

And  all  the  moments  open  are 

To  the  exact  discoverer. 

Yet  more  and  more  he  smiles  upon 

The  happy  revolution. 


NEW  YEAR'S  EVE. 

Why  should  we  then  suspect  or  fear 

The  influences  of  a  year, 

So  smiles  upon  us  the  first  mom, 

And  speaks  us  good  so  soon  as  born? 

Plague  on't!  the  last  wfis  ill  enough, 

This  cannot  but  make  better  proof; 

Or,  at  the  worst,  as  we  Lu'ush'd  through 

The  last,  why  so  we  may  this  too; 

And  then  the  next  in  reason  shou'd 

Be  superexcellently  good : 

For  the  worst  ills  (we  daily  see) 

Have  no  more  perpetuity 

Than  the  best  fortunes  that  do  fall; 

Which  also  bring  us  wherewithal 

Longer  their  being  to  support, 

Than  those  do  of  the  other  sort ; 

And  who  has  one  good  year  in  three, 

And  yet  repines  at  destiny, 

Appears  ungrateful  in  the  case. 

And  merits  not  the  good  he  has. 

Then  let  us  welcome  the  New  Guest 

With  lusty  brimmers  of  the  best: 

Jlirth  always  should  Good  Fortune  meet, 

And  renders  e'en  Disastei-  sweet: 

And  though  the  Princess  turn  her  back, 

Let  us  but  line  ourselves  with  sack, 

We  better  shall  by  far  hold  out, 

Till  the  next  Year  she  face  about. 


How  say  yovi,  reader  —  do  not  these  verses  smack  of 
the  rough  magnanimity  of  the  old  English  vein  ?  Do 
they  not  fortify  like  a  cordial ;  enlargmg  the  heart,  and 
productive  of  sweet  hlood,  and  generous  spirits,  in  the 
concoction  ?  Where  he  those  puling  fears  of  death, 
just  now  expressed  or  affected  ?  —  Passed  like  a  cloud 
—  absorbed  in  the  purging  sunlight  of  clear  poetry  — 
clean  washed  away  by  a  wave  of  genuine  Helicon,  your 
only  Spa  for  these  hyi^ochondries  —  And  now  another 
cup  of  the  generous  !  and  a  merry  New  Year,  an  J 
many  of  them  to  you  all,  my  masters  I 


GO  MRS.  BATTLE'S  OPLNIONS   ON   WHIST. 


MRS.   BATTLE'S   OPINIONS   ON  WHIST. 

"  A  CLEAR  fire,  a  clean  heartli,  and  the  rigor  of  the 
game."  This  was  the  celebrated  wisJi  of  old  Sarah 
Battle  (now  with  God),  who,  next  to  her  devotions, 
loved  a  good  game  of  whist.  She  was  none  of  your 
lukewann  gamesters,  your  half-and-half  players,  who 
have  no  objection  to  take  a  hand,  if  you  want  one  to 
make  up  a  rubber;  who  affirm  that  they  have  no 
pleasure  in  winning ;  that  they  like  to  win  one  game 
and  lose  another ;  that  they  can  while  away  an  hour 
very  agreeably  at  a  card-table,  but  are  indifferent 
whether  they  play  or  no ;  and  will  desire  an  adversary, 
who  has  slipped  a  wrong  card,  to  take  it  up  and  play 
another.  Tliese  insufferable  trifles  are  the  curse  of  a 
table.  One  of  these  flies  will  spoil  a  whole  pot.  Of 
such  it  may  be  said  that  they  do  not  play  at  cards,  but 
only  play  at  playing  at  them. 

Sarah  Battle  was  none  of  that  breed.  She  detested 
them,  as  I  do,  from  her  heart  and  soul,  and  would  not, 
save  upon  a  striking  emergency,  willingly  seat  herself 
at  the  same  table  with  them.  She  loved  a  thorough- 
paced partner,  a  determined  enemy.  She  took,  and 
gave,  no  concessions.  She  hated  favors.  She  never 
made  a  revoke,  nor  ever  passed  it  over  hi  her  adversary 
without  exactino;  the  utmost  forfeiture.  She  fouo-ht  a 
good  fight :  cut  and  thrust.  She  held  not  her  good 
sword  (her  cards)  "  like  a  dancer."  She  sate  bolt  vip- 
right ;  and  neither  showed  you  her  cards,  nor  desired 
to  see  yours.  All  people  have  their  blind  side  —  their 
superstitions  ;  and  I  have  heard  lier  declare,  under  the 
rose,  that  hearts  was  her  favorite  suit. 


MRS.   BATTLE'S   OPINIONS   ON   WHIST.  61 

I  never  in  my  life  —  and  I  knew  Sarah  Battle  many 
of  the  best  years  of  it  —  saw  her  take  out  her  snnfFbox 
when  it  was  her  turn  to  play ;  or  snuff  a  candle  in  the 
middle  of  a  game  ;  or  ring  for  a  servant,  till  it  was 
fairly  over.  She  never  introduced,  or  connived  at, 
miscellaneous  conversation  during  its  process.  As  she 
emphatically  observed,  cards  were  cards  ;  and  if  I  ever 
saw  unmingled  distaste  in  her  fine  last-century  counte- 
nance, it  was  at  the  airs  of  a  young  gentleman  of  a 
literary  turn,  who  had  been  with  difficulty  persuaded 
to  take  a  hand  ;  and  who,  in  his  excess  of  candor,  de- 
clared, that  he  thought  there  was  no  harm  in  unbenc^ 
ing  the  mind  now  and  then,  after  serious  studies,  in 
recreations  of  that  kind  !  She  could  not  bear  to  have 
her  noble  occupation,  to  which  she  wound  up  her  facul- 
ties, considered  in  that  light.  It  was  her  business,  her 
duty,  the  thing  she  came  into  the  world  to  do,  —  and 
she  did  it.  She  unbent  her  mind  afterwards,  over  a 
book. 

Pope  was  her  favorite  author;  his  "  Rape  of  the 
Lock  "  her  favorite  work.  She  once  did  me  the  favor 
to  play  over  with  me  (with  the  cards)  his  celebrated 
game  of  Ombre  in  that  poem  ;  and  to  explain  to  me 
how  far  it  agreed  with,  and  in  what  points  it  would  be 
found  to  diflPer  from,  tradrille.  Her  illustrations  were 
apposite  and  poignant ;  and  I  had  the  pleasure  of  send- 
ing the  substance  of  them  to  Mr.  Bowles ;  but  I  su}> 
pose  they  came  too  late  to  be  inserted  among  his  m- 
genious  notes  upon  that  author. 

Quadrille,  she  has  often  told  me,  was  her  first  love  ; 
but  whist  had  engap-ed  her  maturer  esteem.  The 
former,  she  said,  was  showy  and  specious,  and  likely  to 
allurn   young   persons.      The    uncertainty    and    quick 


62  MRS.   BATTLE'S    OPINIONS   ON    WmST. 

shifting  of  partners  —  a  thing  which  the  constancy  of 
whist  abhors  ;  —  the  dazzHng  supremacy  and  regal  in 
vestiture  of  Spadille  —  absui'd,  as  she  justly  observed, 
in  the  piu'e  aristocracy  of  whist,  where  his  crown  and 
garter  give  him  no  proper  power  above  his  brother- 
nobility  of  the  Aces ;  —  the  giddy  vanity,  so  taking  to 
the  inexperienced,  of  playing  alone ;  above  all,  the 
overpowering  attractions  of  a  Saris  Prendre  Vole,  —  to 
the  triumph  of  which  there  is  certainly  nothing  parallel 
or  approaching,  in  the  contingencies  of  whist ;  —  all 
these,  she  would  say,  make  quadi'ille  a  game  of  captiva- 
lion  to  tlie  young  and  enthusiastic.  But  whist  was  the 
solider  game :  that  was  her  word.  It  was  a  long  meal ; 
not,  like  quadrille,  a  feast  of  snatches.  One  or  two 
rubbers  might  coextend  in  duration  Avith  an  evening. 
Tliey  gave  time  to  form  rooted  friendships,  to  cultivate 
steady  enmities.  She  despised  tlie  chance-started,  ca- 
pricious, ani  ever  fluctuating  alliances  of  the  other. 
The  skirmisnes  of  quadrille,  she  would  say,  reminded 
her  of  the  petty  ephemeral  embroilments  of  the  little 
Italian  states,  depicted  by  Machiavel :  perpetually 
changing  postures  and  connections  ;  bitter  foes  to-day, 
suo-ared  darlino;s  to-morrow  ;  kissing  and  scratching  m 
a  breath  ;  —  but  the  wars  of  whist  were  comparable  to 
the  long,  steady,  deep-rooted,  rational  antipathies  of 
tlie  great  French  and  English  nations. 

A  grave  simplicity  was  what  she  chiefly  admired  in 
her  favorite  game.  There  was  nothing  sillv  in  it, 
like  the  nob  in  ci'ibbage  —  nothing  superfluovis.  No 
flushes  —  that  most  irrational  of  all  pleas  that  a  reason- 
able bemg  can  set  uj) ;  —  that  any  one  should  claim 
four  by  virtue  of  holding  cards  of  the  same  mark  and 
color,  witl'out  reference  to  the  playing  of  the  game,  or 


MRS.   BATTLE'S    OPINIONS    ON   WHIST.  G3 

the  individual  worth  or  pretensions  of  the  cards  them- 
selves !  She  held  this  to  be  a  solecism ;  as  pitiful  an 
ambition  at  cards  as  alliteration  is  in  authorship.  She 
despised  superficiality,  and  looked  deeper  than  the  colors 
of  things.  —  Suits  were  soldiers,  she  would  say,  and 
must  have  a  uniformity  of  array  to  distinguish  them ; 
but  what  should  we  say  to  a  foolish  squire,  who  should 
claim  a  merit  from  dressing  up  his  tenantry  in  red 
jackets,  that  never  were  to  be  marshalled  —  never  to 
take  the  field  ?  —  She  even  wished  that  whist  were 
more  simple  than  it  is ;  and,  in  my  mind,  would  have 
stripped  it  of  some  appendages,  which  in  the  state  of 
human  frailty,  may  be  venially,  and  even  commend- 
ably,  allowed  of.  She  saw  no  reason  for  the  deciding 
of  the  trump  by  the  turn  of  the  card.  Why  not  one 
suit  always  trumps  ?  —  Why  two  colors,  when  the 
mark  of  the  suits  would  have  sufficiently  distinguished 
them  without  it? 

"  But  the  eye,  my  dear  Madam,  is  agreeably  re- 
freshed with  the  variety.  Man  is  not  a  creature  of 
pure  reason  —  he  must  have  his  senses  delightftdly 
appealed  to.  We  see  it  in  Roman  Catholic  countries, 
where  the  music  and  the  pamtings  draw  in  many  to 
worship,  whom  your  Quaker  spirit  of  unsensualizing 
would  have  kept  ovit.  —  You  yourself  have  a  pretty 
collection  of  paintings,  —  but  confess  to  me,  whether, 
walking  in  your  gallery  at  Sandham,  among  those 
clear  Vandykes,  or  among  the  Paul  Potters  in  the 
anteroom,  you  ever  felt  your  bosom  glow  with  an 
elegant  delight,  at  all  comparable  to  that  you  have  it 
in  your  power  to  experience  most  evenings  over  a  well- 
aiTanged  assortment  of  the  court-cards  ?  —  the  pretty 
antic   habits,  like  heralds   in  a   procession  —  the  gay 


64  MRS.   BATTLE'S   OPINIONS   ON   WHIST. 

tnumph-assuring  scarlets  —  tlie  contrasting  deadly-kill- 
ing sables  —  the  '  lioary  majesty  of  spades'  —  Pam  in 
all  his  glory  ! 

"  All  these  might  be  dispensed  with ;  and  with  their 
naked  names  upon  the  drab  pasteboard,  the  game 
might  go  on  very  well,  pictureless.  But  the  beauty 
of  cards  would  be  extinguished  forever.  Stripped  of 
all  that  is  imaginative  in  them,  they  must  degenerate 
into  mere  gamblmg.  Imagine  a  dull  deal  board,  or 
drum-head,  to  spread  them  on,  instead  of  that  nice 
verdant  carpet  (next  to  Nature's),  fittest  arena  for 
those  courtly  combatants  to  play  their  gallant  jousts 
and  tourneys  in  !  —  Exchange  those  delicately  turned 
ivory  markers  —  (work  of  Chinese  artist,  unconscious 
of  then'  symbol,  —  or  as  profanely  slighting  their  tnie 
application  as  the  arrantest  Ephesian  journeyman  that 
turned  out  those  little  shrines  for  the  goddess)  —  ex- 
change them  for  little  bits  of  leather  (our  ancestors' 
money),  or  chalk  and  a  slate  !  " 

The  old  lady,  with  a  smile,  confessed  the  soundness 
of  my  logic ;  and  to  her  approbation  of  my  arguments 
on  her  favorite  topic  that  evening,  I  have  always 
fancied  myself  indebted  for  the  legacy  of  a  curious 
cribbage-board,  made  of  the  finest  Sienna  marble, 
which  her  maternal  uncle  (old  Walter  Plumer,  whom 
I  have  elsewhere  celebrated,)  brought  with  him  from 
Florence ;  —  this,  and  a  trifle  of  five  hundred  pounds, 
came  to  me  at  her  death. 

The  former  bequest  (which  I  do  not  least  value)  T 
have  kept  with  religious  care ;  though  she  herself,  to 
confess  a  truth,  was  never  greatly  taken  with  cribbage. 
It  was  an  essentially  vulgar  game,  I  have  heard  her 
say,  —  disputing  with  her  uncle,  who  was  very  partial 


MKS.   BATTLE'S   OPINIONS   ON   WHIST.  Co 

to  it.  She  could  never  heartily  bring  her  mouth  to 
pronounce  "  Cro  "  —  or  "  ThaCs  a  go.''''  She  called  it 
an  ungi"ammatical  game.  The  jDegging  teased  her.  I 
once  knew  her  to  forfeit  a  rubber  (a  five-dollar  stake), 
because  she  would  not  take  advantage  of  the  turn-up 
knave,  which  would  have  given  it  her,  but  which  she 
must  have  claimed  by  the  disgraceful  tenure  of  declar- 
ing ''^  two  for  his  heels.''^  There  is  something  extremely 
genteel  in  this  sort  of  self-denial.  Sarah  Battle  was  a 
gentlewoman  bom. 

Piquet  she  held  the  best  game  at  the  cards  for  two 
persons,  though  she  would  ridicule  the  pedantry  of  the 
terms,  —  such  as  pique  —  repique  —  the  capot,  —  they 
savored  (she  thought)  of  affectation.  But  games  for 
two,  or  even  three,  she  never  greatly  cared  for.  She 
loved  the  quadrate,  or  square.  She  would  argue  thus : 
—  Cards  are  warfare :  the  ends  are  gain,  with  glory. 
But  cards  are  war,  in  disguise  of  a  sport :  when  single 
adversaries  encounter,  the  ends  proposed  are  too  pal- 
pable. By  themselves,  it  is  too  close  a  fight ;  with 
spectators,  it  is  not  much  bettered.  No  looker-on  can 
be  interested,  except  for  a  bet,  and  then  it  is  a  mere 
affair  of  money  ;  he  cares  not  for  your  luck  sym2}at7iet' 
ioallg,  or  for  your  play.  —  Three  are  still  worse ;  a 
mere  naked  war  of  every  man  against  every  man,  as  in 
cribbage,  without  league  or  alliance ;  or  a  rotation  of 
petty  and  contradictory  interests,  a  succession  of  heart 
less  leagues,  and  not  much  more  hearty  infractions  of 
them,  as  in  tradrille.  —  But  in  square  games  (^she  meant 
whist),  all  that  is  possible  to  be  attained  in  card-playing 
IS  accomplished.  There  are  the  incentives  of  profit 
with  honor,  common  to  every  species,  —  though  the 
latter  can  be  but  very  imperfectly  enjoyed   im   those 


66  MRS.   BATTLE'S   OPINIONS   ON  WHIST. 

other  games,  where  the  spectator  is  only  feebly  a  par- 
ticipator. But  the  parties  in  whist  are  spectators  and 
principals  too.  They  are  a  theatre  to  themselves,  and 
a  looker-on  is  not  wanted.  He  is  rather  worse  than 
nothing,  and  an  impertinence.  Whist  abhors  neutral- 
ity, or  interests  beyond  its  sphere.  You  glory  in  some 
surprising  stroke  of  skill  or  fortune,  not  because  a  cold 

—  or  even  an  interested  —  bystander  witnesses  it,  but 
because  your  jjartner  sympathizes  in  the  contingency. 
You  win  for  two.  You  triumph  for  two.  Two  are 
exalted.  Two  again  are  mortified ;  which  divides  their 
disgrace,  as  the  conjunction  doubles  (by  taking  off  the 
invidiousness)  your  glories.  Two  losing  to  two  are 
better  reconciled,  tlian  one  to  one  in  that  close  butch- 
ery. The  hostile  feeling  is  weakened  by  multiplying 
the  channels.  War  becomes  a  civil  game.  —  By  such 
reasonings  as  these  the  old  lady  was  accustomed  to 
defend  her  favorite  pastime. 

No  inducement  could  ever  prevail  upon  her  to  play 
at  any  game,  where  chance  entered  into  the  compo- 
sition, for  nothing.  Chance,  she  would  argue,  —  and 
here  again,  admire  the  subtlety  of  her  conclusion,  — 
chance  is  nothing,  but  where  something  else  depends 
upon  it.  It  is  obvious  that  cannot  be  glory.  What 
rational  cause  of  exultation  could  it  give  to  a  man  to 
turn  up  size  ace  a  hundred  times  together  by  himself? 
or  before  spectators,  where  no  stake  was  depending? 

—  Make  a  lottery  of  a  hundred  thousand  tickets  with 
but  one  fortmiate  number,  —  and  what  possible  princi- 
ple of  our  nature,  except  stupid  wonderment,  could  it 
gratify  to  gain  that  number  as  many  times  successively, 
without  a  prize  ?  Therefore  she  disliked  the  mixture 
of  chance  in  backgammon,  where  it  was  not  played 


MRS.   BATTLE'S   OPINIONS    ON   WHIST.  67 

for  money.  She  called  it  foolish,  and  those  people 
idiots,  who  were  taken  with  a  lucky  hit  under  sacli  cir- 
cumstances. Games  of  pure  skill  were  as  little  to  her 
fancy.  Played  for  a  stake,  they  were  a  mere  system 
of  overreaching.  Played  for  glory,  they  were  a  mere 
setting  of  one  man's  wit  —  his  memory,  or  combina- 
tion faculty  rather  —  against  another's ;  like  a  mock 
engagement  at  a  review,  bloodless  and  profitless.  She 
could  not  conceive  a  game  wanting  the  spritely  infusion 
of  chance,  the  handsome  excuses  of  good  fortune.  Two 
people  playing  at  chess  in  a  corner  of  a  room,  whilst 
whist  was  stirring  in  the  centre,  would  inspire  her  with 
insufferable  horror  and  ennui.  Those  well-cut  simili- 
tudes of  Castles,  and  Knights,  the  imagery  of  the  board, 
she  would  argue,  (and  I  think  m  this  case  justly,) 
were  entu'ely  misplaced  and  senseless.  Those  hard 
head-contests  can  in  no  instance  ally  with  the  fancy. 
They  reject  form  and  color.  A  pencil  and  diy.  slate 
(she  used  to  say)  were  the  proper  arena  for  such  com- 
batants. 

To  those  puny  objectors  against  cards,  as  nurturing 
the  bad  passions,  she  would  retort,  that  man  is  a  gam- 
ing animal.  He  must  be  always  trying  to  get  the 
better  in  something  or  other ;  —  that  this  passion  can 
scarcely  be  more  safely  expended  than  upon  a  game  at 
cards  ;  that  cards  are  a  temporary  illusion ;  in  trutli_ 
a  mere  drama  ;  for  we  do  but  play  at  being  mightily 
concerned,  where  a  few  idle  shillings  are  at  stake,  yet, 
during  the  illusion,  we  are  as  mightily  concerned  as 
those  whose  stake  is  crowns  and  kingdoms.  They  are 
a  sort  of  dream-fighting ;  much  ado ;  great  battling, 
and  little  bloodshed ;  mighty  means  for  disproportioned 
ends  ;  quite  as  divertuig,  and  a  great  deal  more  innox 


68  IIRS.   BATTLE'S   OPINIONS   ON   WHIST. 

ious,  than  many  of  those  more  serious  games  of  life 
which  men  play,  without  esteeming  them  to  be  such. 

With  great  deference  to  the  old  lady's  judgment  in 
these  matters,  I  tliink  I  have  experienced  some  moments 
in  my  life,  when  playing  at  cards  for  nothing  has  even 
been  agx-eeable.  When  I  am  in  sickness,  or  not  in  the 
best  spirits,  I  sometimes  call  for  the  cards,  and  play  a 
game  at  piquet  for  love  with  my  cousin  Bridget— ;- 
Bridget  Elia. 

I  gi'ant  there  is  something  sneaking  in  it ;  but  with 
a  toothache,  or  a  sprained  ankle,  —  when  you  are  sub- 
dued and  lunnble,  —  you  are  glad  to  put  up  with  an 
inferior  spring  of  action. 

There  is  such  a  thing  m  nature,  I  am  con\dnced,  as 
sick  whist. 

I  grant  it  is  not  the  highest  style  of  man  —  I  depre- 
cate the  manes  of  Sarah  Battle  —  she  lives  not,  alas  I 
to  whom  I  should  apologize. 

At  such  times,  those  terms^  which  my  old  friend 
objected  to,  come  in  as  something  admissible.  I  love 
to  get  a  tierce  or  a  quatoi'ze,  though  they  mean  noth- 
ing. I  am  subdued  to  an  inferior  interest.  Those 
shadows  of  winnins;  amuse  me. 

That  last  game  I  had  with  my  SAveet  cousin  (I 
^  capotted  her)  —  (dare  I  tell  thee,  how  foolish  I  am  ?) 
—  I  wished  it  might  have  lasted  forever,  though  we 
gained  nothing,  and  lost  nothing ;  though  it  was  a  mere 
shade  of  play,  I  would  be  content  to  go  on  in  that  idle 
folly  forever.  The  pipkin  should  be  ever  boiling,  that 
was  to  prepare  the  gentle  lenitive  to  my  foot,  wliich 
Bridget  was  doomed  to  apply  after  the  game  Avas  over ; 
and,  as  I  do  not  much  relish  appliances,  there  it  should 
ever  bubble.     Bi'idget  and  I  should  be  ever  playuig. 


A  CHAPTER   ON  EARS.  69 


A   CHAPTER   ON  EARS. 

I  HAVE  no  ear. — 

Mistake  me  not,  reader  —  nor  imagine  that  I  am  by 
nature  destitute  of  those  exterior  twin  appendages, 
hanging  ornaments,  and  (architecturally  speaking) 
handsome  volutes  to  the  human  capital.  Better  my 
mother  had  never  borne  me.  I  am,  I  think,  rather 
delicately  than  copiously  provided  with  those  conduits; 
and  I  feel  no  disposition  to  envy  the  mule  for  his 
plenty,  or  the  mole  for  her  exactness,  in  those  mgen- 
ious  labyrinthine  inlets  —  those  indispensable  side-intel- 
ligencers. 

Neither  have  I  incurred,  or  done  anything  to  mciir, 
with  Defoe,  that  hideous  disfigurement,  which  con- 
strained him  to  draw  upon  assurance  —  to  feel  "  quite 
unabashed,"  and  at  ease  upon  that  article.  I  was 
never,  I  thank  my  stars,  in  the  pillory  ;  nor,  if  I  read 
them  aright,  is  it  within  the  compass  of  my  destiny, 
that  I  fever  should  be. 

When  therefore  I  say  that  I  have  no  ear,  you  will 
understand  me  to  mean  — for  mudc.  To  say  that  this 
heart  never  melted  at  the  concord  of  sweet  somids, 
would  be  a  foul  self-libel.  "  Water  parted  from  the 
sea  "  never  fails  to  move  it  strangely.  So  does  "  In 
infancy.''''  But  they  were  used  to  be  sung  at  her  harp- 
sichoi'd  (the  old-fashioned  instrument  in  vogue  in  those 
days)  by  a  gentlewoman  —  the  gentlest,  sure,  that  ever 
merited  the  appellation  —  the  sweetest  —  why  should  I 

hesi  ate  to  name  Mrs.  S ,  once  the  blooming  Fanny 

Weatheral  of  the  Temple  —  who  had  power  to  thrill 


7b  A   CHAPTER   ON   EARS. 

the  soul  of  Ella,  small  imp  as  he  was,  even  in  his  long 
coats ;  and  to  make  him  glow,  tremble,  and  blush  with 
a  passion,  that  not  faintly  indicated  the  dayspring  of 
that  absorbino;  sentiment  which  was  afterwards  destined 
to  overwhelm  and  subdue  his  natiu'e  quite  for  Alice 
W n. 

I  even  think  that  sentimentally  I  am  disposed  to 
harmony.  But  organically  I  am  incapable  of  a  tune. 
I  have  been  practising  "  Crod  save  the  King  "  all  my 
life ;  whistling  and  humming  of  it  over  to  myself  in 
solitary  corners ;  and  am  not  yet  arrived,  they  tell  me, 
within  many  quavers  of  it.  Yet  hath  the  loyalty  of 
Elia  never  been  impeached. 

I  am  not  without  suspicion,  that  I  have  an  unde- 
veloped faculty  of  music  within  me.  For  thrumming, 
in  my  wild  way,  on  my  friend  A.'s  piano,  the  other 
morning,  while  he  was  engaged  in  an  adjoining  parlor, 
—  on  his  return  he  was  pleased  to  say,  "  he  thought  it 
could  not  be  the  maid  !  "  On  his  first  surprise  at  hear- 
ing the  keys  touched  in  somewhat  an  airy  and  master- 
fiil  way,  not  dreaming  of  me,  his  suspicions  had  lighted 
on  Jenny.  But  a  grace,  snatched  from  a  superior 
refinement,  soon  convinced  him  that  some  bciing  — 
technically  perhaps  deficient,  but  higher  informed  from 
a  principle  common  to  all  the  fine  arts  —  had  swayed 
the  keys  to  a  mood  which  Jenny,  with  all  her  (less 
cviltivated)  enthusiasm,  could  never  have  elicited  from 
them.  I  mention  this  as  a  proof  of  my  fi-iend's  pene- 
tration, and  not  with  any  view  of  disparaging  Jenny. 

Scientifically  I  could  never  be  made  to  understand 
(yet  have  I  taken  some  pains)  what  a  note  in  music 
is  ;  or  how  one  note  should  differ  from  another.  Mach 
less  in  I'oices  can  I  distinguish  a  soprano  from  a  tenor. 


A   CHAPTER   ON  EARS.  71 

Or\v  sometimes  the  thorougli-bass  I  contrive  to  giiess 
at.  from  its  being  supereminently  harsh  and  disagree- 
able. 1  tremble,  however,  for  my  misapplication  of  the 
simplest  terms  of  that  which  I  disclaim.  While  I  pro- 
fess my  ignorance,  I  scarce  know  what  to  say  I  am 
ignorant  of.  I  hate,  perhaps,  by  misnomers.  Sostenuto 
and  adagio  stand  in  the  like  relation  of  obscurity  to  me ; 
and  Sol,  Fa,  Mi,  Re,  is  as  conjuring  as  Baraltpton. 

It  is  hard  to  stand  alone  in  an  age  like  this,  —  (con 
stituted  to  the  quick  and  critical  perception  of  all  har- 
monious combinations,  I  verily  believe,  beyond  all 
preceding  ages,  since  Jubal  stumbled  upon  the  gamut,) 
to  remain,  as  it  were,  singly  unimpressible  to  the  magic 
influences  of  an  art,  which  is  said  to  have  such  an 
especial  stroke  at  soothing,  elevating,  and  refining  the 
passions.  —  Yet,  rather  than  break  the  candid  current 
of  my  confessions,  I  must  avow  to  you,  that  I  have  re- 
ceived a  great  deal  more  pain  than  pleasure  from  this 
so  cried-up  faculty. 

I  am  constitutionally  susceptible  of  noises.  A  car- 
penter's hammer,  in  a  warm  summer  noon,  will  fret 
me  into  more  than  midsummer  madness.  But  those 
unconnected,  unset  sounds  are  nothing  to  the  measured 
malice  of  music.  The  ear  is '  passive  to  those  single 
strokes ;  willingly  enduring  stripes  while  it  hath  no 
task  to  con.  To  music  it  cannot  be  passive.  It  will 
strive  —  mine  at  least  will  —  'spite  of  its  inaptitude, 
to  thrid  the  maze  ;  like  an  unskilled  eye  painfully  por- 
ing upon  hieroglyphics.  I  have  sat  through  an  Italian 
Opera,  till,  for  sheer  pain,  and  inexplicable  anguish,  I 
have  rushed  out  into  the  noisiest  places  of  the  crowded 
streets,  to  solace  myself  with  sounds,  which  I  was  not 
obliged  to  follow,  and  get  rid  of  the  distracting  torment 


72  A  CHAPTER   ON  EARS. 

of  endless,  fruitless,  barren  attention !  I  take  refuge 
in  the  unpretending  assemblage  of  honest  common-life 
sounds  ;  —  and  the  purgatory  of  the  Enraged  Musician 
becomes  my  paradise. 

I  have  sat  at  an  Oratorio  (that  profanation  of  the 
purposes  of  the  cheei-ful  playhouse)  watching  the  faces 
of  the  auditory  in  the  pit  (what  a  contrast  to  Hogarth's 
Laughing  Audience !)  immovable,  or  affecting  some 
famt  emotion  —  till  (as  some  have  said,  that  our  occu- 
pations in  the  next  world  will  be  but  a  shadow  of  what 
delighted  us  in  this,)  I  have  imagined  myself  in  some 
cold  Theatre  in  Hades,  where  some  of  the  forms  of  the 
earthly  one  should  be  kept  up,  with  none  of  the  enjoy- 
ment ;  or  like  that 

Party  in  a  parlor 
All  silent,  and  all  damned. 

Above  all,  those  insufferable  concertos,  and  pieces  of 
music,  as  they  are  called,  do  plague  and  imbitter  my 
apprehension.  Words  are  something ;  but  to  be  ex- 
posed to  an  endless  battery  of  mere  sounds  ;  to  be  long 
a-dying  ;  to  lie  stretched  upon  a  rack  of  roses ;  to  keep 
up  languor  by  unintermitted  effort ;  to  pile  honey  upon 
sugar,  and  sugar  upon  honey,  to  an  interminable 
tedious  sweetness  ;  to  fill  up  sound  with  feeling,  and 
strain  ideas  to  keep  pace  with  it;  to  gaze  on  empty 
frames,  and  be  forced  to  make  the  pictures  for  your- 
self; to  read  a  book,  all  stops,  and  be  obliged  to  supply 
the  verbal  matter ;  to  invent  extempore  tragedies  to 
answer  to  the  vague  gestures  of  an  mexplicable  ram- 
bling mime,  —  these  are  faint  shadows  of  what  I  have 
undergone  from  a  seiles  of  the  ablest  executed  pieces 
of  tliis  empty  i7istrumental  music. 

I  deny  not,  that  in  the  opening  of  a  concert,  I  have 


A   CHAPTER   ON   EARS.  73 

experienced  something  vastly  lulling  an({  agreeable  ;  — 
afterwards  followeth  the  languor  and  the  oppression. 
—  Like  that  disappointing  book  in  Patmos ;  or  like 
the  comings  on  of  melancholy,  described  by  Burton, 
doth  music  make  her  first  insinuating  approaches : 
*'  Most  pleasant  it  is  to  such  as  are  melancholy  given 
to  walk  alone  in  some  solitary  grove,  betwixt  wood  and 
water,  by  some  brook  side,  and  to  meditate  upon  some 
delightsome  and  pleasant  subject,  wliich  shall  affect 
liim  most,  amabilis  insania,  and  mentis  gratiasimus 
error.  A  most  incomparable  delight  to  build  castles  in 
the  air,  to  go  smiling  to  themselves,  acting  an  infinite 
variety  of  parts,  which  they  suppose,  and  strongly 
imagine  they  act,  or  that  they  see  done.  So  delight- 
some these  toys  at  first,  they  could  spend  whole  days 
and  nights  without  sleep,  even  whole  years  in  such 
contemplations,  and  fantastical  meditations,  which  are 
like  so  many  dreams,  and  will  hardly  be  di'awn  from 
them,  —  winding  and  unwinding  themselves  as  so  many 
clocks,  and  still  pleasing  their  humors,  until  at  the 
last  the  SCENE  turns  upon  a  sudden,  and  they  being 
now  habituated  to  such  meditations  and  solitary  places, 
can  endm-e  no  company,  can  think  of  nothing  but 
harsh  and  distasteful  subjects.  Fear,  sorrow,  suspicion, 
8ubrusticus  pador,  discontent,  cares,  and  weariness  of 
life,  surprise  them  on  a  sudden,  and  they  can  think  of 
nothing  else ;  continually  suspecting,  no  sooner  are 
their  eyes  open,  but  this  infernal  plague  of  melancholy 
seizeth  on  them,  and  terrifies  their  souls,  representing 
some  dismal  object  to  their  minds  ;  which  now,  by  no 
means,  no  labor,  no  persuasions,  they  can  avoid,  they 
cannot  be  rid  of,  they  cannot  resist." 

Something  like  this  "  scene  turning  "  I  have  ex 


74  A    CHAPTER   Ois    EARS. 

perienced  at  the  evening  parties,  at  the  house  of  my 

good  Cathohc  friend  Nov ;  who,  by  the  aid  of  a 

capital  organ,  himself  the  most  finished  of  players, 
converts  his  drawing-room  into  a  chapel,  his  weekdays 
into  Sim  days,  and  these  latter  into  minor  heavens.* 

When  my  friend  commences  upon  one  of  those 
solemn  anthems,  which  peradventure  struck  upon  my 
heedless  ear,  rambling  in  the  side  aisles  of  the  dim 
Abbey,  some  five-and-thirty  years  since,  waking  a  new 
sense,  and  putting  a  soul  of  old  religion  into  my 
young  apprehension  —  (whether  it  be  ihat^  in  which 
the  Psalmist,  weary  of  the  persecutions  of  bad  men, 
wisheth  to  himself  dove's  wings  —  or  that  other ^  which, 
with  a  like  measure  of  sobriety  and  pathos,  inquireth 
by  what  means  the  young  man  shall  best  cleanse  his 
mind)  —  a  holy  calm  pervadeth  me.  I  am  for  the 
time 

rapt  above  earth, 
And  possess  joys  not  promised  at  my  birth. 

But  when  this  master  of  the  spell,  not  content  to 
have  laid  his  soul  prostrate,  goes  on,  in  his  power,  to 
inflict  more  bliss  than  lies  in  her  capacity  to  receive, 
—  impatient  to  overcome  her  "  earthly "  with  his 
"heavenly," — still  pouring  in,  for  protracted  hours, 
fresh  waves  and  fresh  from  the  sea  of  sound,  or  from 
that  inexhausted  Crerman  ocean,  above  which,  in  tri- 
umphant progress,  dolphin-seated,  ride  those  Arions 
Haydn  and  3Iozart,  with  their  attendant  Tritons,  Bach, 
Beethoven,  and  a  countless  tribe,  whom  to  attempt  to 
reckon  up  would  but  plunge  me  again  in  the  deeps,  — 
I  stagger  under  the  weight  of  harmony,  reeling  to  and 

*  I  have  been  there,  and  still  would  c^o; 

'Tis  like  a  little  heaven  below.  —  Dr.  W<Uti. 


ALL  FOOLS'   DAV.  75 

fro  at  ray  wits'  end ;  —  clouds,  as  of  frankincense, 
oppress  me  —  priests,  altars,  censers,  dazzle  before  me 

—  the  genius  of  his  religion  hath  me  in  her  toils  —  a 
shadowy  triple  tiara  invests  the  brow  of  my  friend,  late 
so  naked,  so  ingenuous  —  he  is  Pope,  —  and  by  him 
sits,  like  as  in  the  anomaly  of  dreams,  a  she-Pope  too, 

—  tri-coroneted  like  himself !  —  I  am  converted,  and 
yet  a  Protestant ;  —  at  once  malleus  her'eticoriim,  and 
myself  grand  heresiarch :  or  three  heresies  centre  in  my 
person  :  —  I  am  Marcion,  Ebion,  and  Cerinthus  —  Gog 
and  Magoo;  —  what  not  ?  —  till  the  comino-  in  of 
the  friendly  supper-tray  dissipates  the  figment,  and  a 
draught  of  true  Lutheran  beer  (in  which  chiefly  my 
friend  shows  himself  no  bigot)  at  once  reconciles  me  to 
the  rationalities  of  a  purer  faith  ;  and  restores  to  me 
the  genuine  unterrifying  aspects  of  ray  pleasant-coun- 
tenanced host  and  hostess. 


ALL  FOOLS'  DAY. 


The  compliments  of  the  season  to  my  worthy  mas- 
ters, and  a  merry  first  of  April  to  us  all ! 

Many  happy  returns  of  this  day  to  you  —  and  you — 
and  you.,  Sir  —  nay,  never  frown,  man,  nor  put  a  long 
face  upon  the  matter.  Do  not  we  know  one  another  ? 
what  need  of  ceremony  among  friends  ?  we  have  all  a 
touch  of  that  same  —  you  understand  me  —  a  speck  of 
the  motley.  Beshrew  the  man  who  on  such  a  day  as 
this,  the  general  festival.,  should  affect  to  stand  aloof. 


76  ALL   FOOLS'    DAY. 

I  am  none  of  those  sneakers.  I  am  free  of  tlie  corpo- 
ration, and  care  not  who  knows  it.  He  that  meets  me 
in  the  forest  to-day,  shall  meet  with  no  wiseacre,  I  can 
tell  him.  Stidtus  sum.  Translate  me  that,  and  take 
the  meaning  of  it  to  yourself  for  your  pains.  What ! 
man,  we  have  four  quarters  of  the  globe  on  our  side,  at 
the  least  computation. 

Fill  us  a  cup  of  that  sparkling  goosebeny,  —  we  will 
drink  no  wise,  melancholy,  politic  port  on  this  day,  — 
and  let  us  troll  the  catch  of  Amiens  —  due  ad  me — 
due  ad  me,  —  how  goes  it  ? 

Here  shall  he  see 
Gross  fools  as  he. 

Now  would  I  give  a  trifle  to  know  historically  and 
authentically,  who  was  the  greatest  fool  that  ever  lived. 
I  would  certainly  give  him  in  a  bumper.  Many,  of  the 
present  breed,  I  think  I  could  without  much  difficulty 
name  you  the  party. 

Remove  your  cap  a  little  farther,  if  you  please ;  it 
hides  my  bauble.  And  now  each  man  bestride  his 
hobby,  and  dust  away  his  bells  to  what  tmie  he  pleases. 
I  will  give  you,  for  my  part,  — 

The  crazy  old  church  clock, 
And  the  bewllder'd  chimes. 

Good  master  Empedocles,  you  are  welcome.  It  is 
long  since  you  went  a  salamander-gathering  down 
^tna.  Worse  than  samphire-picking  by  some  odds. 
'Tis  a  mercy  your  worship  did  not  singe  your  nms- 
tachios. 

Ha !  Cleombrotus !  and  what  salads  in  faith  did 
you  light  upon  at  the  bottom  of  the  Meditermnean  ? 


ALL  FOOLS'   DAY.  77 

You  were  founder,  I  take  it,  of  the  disinterested  sect 
of  the  Calenturists. 

Gebir,  my  old  freemason,  and  prince  of  plasterers 
at  Babel,  bring  in  your  trowel,  most  Ancient  Grand  ! 
You  have  claim  to  a  seat  here  at  my  right  hand,  a8 
patron  of  the  stammerers.  You  left  your  work,  if  I  re- 
member Herodotus  correctly,  at  eight  hundred  million 
toises,  or  thereabout,  above  the  level  of  the  sea.  .  Bless 
us,  what  a  long  bell  you  must  have  pulled,  to  call  your 
top  workmen  to  their  nunchion  on  the  low  grounds  of 
Shinar.  Or  did  you  send  up  your  garlic  and  onions 
by  a  rocket  ?  I  am  a  rogue  if  I  am  not  ashamed  to 
show  you  our  Monument  on  Fish-street  Hill,  after  your 
altitudes.     Yet  we  think  it  somewhat. 

What,  the  magnanimous  Alexander  in  tears  ?  —  ciy, 
baby,  put  its  finger  in  its  eye,  it  shall  have  another 
globe,  round  as  an  orange,  pretty  moppet ! 

Mister  Adams 'odso,  I  honor  your  coat  —  pray 

do  us  the  favor  to  read  to  us  that  sermon,  which  you 
lent  to  Mistress  Slipslop  —  the  twenty  and  second  in 
your  portmanteau  there  —  on  Female  Incontinence  — 
the  same  —  it  will  come  in  most  irrelevantly  and  im- 
pertinently seasonable  to  the  time  of  the  day. 

Good  Master  Raymund  Lully,  you  look  wise.  Pray 
correct  that  error. 

Duns,  spare  your  definitions.  I  must  fine  you  a 
bumper,  or  a  paradox.  We  will  have  nothing  said  or 
done  syllogistically  this  day.  Remove  those  logical 
forms,  waiter,  that  no  gentleman  break  the  tender  shins 
of  his  apprehension  stumbling  across  them. 

Master  Stephen,  you  are  late.  —  Ha !  Cokes,  is  it 
you?  —  Aguecheek,  my  dear  knight,  let  me  pay  my 
devoir  to  you.  —  Master  Shallow,  your  worship's  poor 


78  ALL   FOOLS'   DAY. 

servant  to  command.  —  ISIaster  Silence,  I  will  use 
few  words  with  you.  —  Slender,  it  shall  go  hard  if  I 
edge  not  you  in  somewhere.  You  six  will  engross 
all  the  poor  wit  of  the  company  to-day.  I  know  it, 
I  know  it. 

Ha  !    honest  R ,  my  fine  old  Librarian  of  Lud- 

gate,  time  out  of  mind,  art  thou  here  again  ?  Bless 
thy  doublet,  it  is  not  over-new,  threadbare  as  thy 
stories  ;  —  what  dost  thou  flitting  about  the  world  at 
this  rate  ?  Thy  customers  are  extinct,  defunct,  bed- 
rid, have  ceased  to  read  long  ago.  Thou  goest  still 
among  them,  seeing  if,  peradventure,  thou  canst  hawk 

a  volume   or  two.      Good  Granville  S ,  thy  last 

patron,  is  flown. 

King  Pandion,  he  is  dead,  ^ 

All  thy  friends  are  lapt  in  lead. 

Nevertheless,  noble  R ,  come  in,  and  take  your 

seat  here,  between  Armado  and  Quisada ;  for  in  true 
courtesy,  in  gravity,  in  fantastic  smiling  to  thyself,  in 
com-teous  smiling  upon  others,  in  the  goodly  ornature 
of  well-apparelled  sj^eech,  and  the  commendation  of 
wise  sentences,  thou  art  nothing  inferior  to  those  ac- 
complished Dons  of  Spain.  The  spirit  of  chivalry 
forsake  me  forever,  when  I  forget  thy  singing  the 
song  of  Macheath,  Avliich  declares  that  he  might  be 
happy  with  either,  situated  between  those  two  ancient 
spinsters,  —  when  I  forget  the  inimitable  formal  love 
which  thou  didst  make,  turning  now  to  the  one,  and 
now  to  the  other,  with  that  Malvolian  smile  —  as  if 
Cervantes,  not  Gay,  had  written  it  for  his  hero ;  and 
as  if  thousands  of  periods  must  revolve,  before  the 
mirror    of    courtesy    could    have    given    his    invidious 


ALL   FOOLS'    DAY.  79 

preference  between  a  pair  of  so  goodly-propertied  ana 
meritorious-equal  damsels.        ..... 

To  descend  from  these  altitudes,  and  not  to  protract 
our  Fools'  Banquet  beyond  its  appropriate  dnj,  —  for 
I  fear  the  second  of  April  is  not  many  hours  distant,  — 
in  sober  verity  I  will  confess  a  truth  to  thee,  reader.  I 
love  a  Fool —  as  naturally,  as  if  I  were  of  kith  and  kin 
to  him.  When  a  child,  with  childlike  apprehensions, 
that  dived  not  below  the  surface  of  the  matter,  I  read 
those  Parables  —  not  guessing  at  the  involved  wisdom, 
—  I  had  more  yearnings  towards  that  simple  architect, 
that  built  his  house  upon  the  sand,  than  I  entertained 
for  his  more  cautious  neighbor  ;  I  grudged  at  the  hard 
censure  pronounced  upon  the  quiet  soul  that  kept  his 
talent ;  and  —  prizing  their  simplicity  beyond  the  more 
provident,  and,  to  my  apprehension,  somewhat  unfemi- 
nine  wariness  of  their  competitors  —  I  felt  a  kindliness, 
that  almost  amounted  to  a  tendre.  for  those  five  thoup-ht- 
less  virgins.  I  have  never  made  an  acquamtance  since, 
that  lasted  ;  or  a  friendship,  that  answered ;  with  any 
that  had  not  some  tincture  of  the  absurd  in  their  char- 
acters. I  venerate  an  honest  obliquity  of  understand- 
ing. The  more  laughable  blunders  a  man  shall  commit 
in  your  company,  the  more  tests  he  giveth  you,  that  he 
will  not  betray  or  overreach  you.  I  love  the  safety, 
which  a  palpable  hallucination  warrants  ;  the  security, 
which  a  word  out  of  season  ratifies.  And  take  my 
word  for  this,  reader,  and  say  a  fool  told  it  you,  if  you 
please,  that  he  who  hath  not  a  dram  of  folly  in  his  mix- 
ture, hath  pounds  of  much  worse  matter  in  his  compo- 
sition. It  is  observed,  that  "  the  foolisher  the  fowl  or 
fish,  —  woodcocks  —  dotterels  —  cods'-heads,  —  &c.  the 
finer  the  flesh  thereof;"  and  what  are  commonly  the 


so  A   QUAKERS'    MEETING. 

world's  received  fools,  but  sucli  whereof  the  world  is 
not  worthy  ?  and  what  have  been  some  of  tlie  kindliest 
patterns  of  our  species,  but  so  many  darlings  of  absur- 
dity, minions  of  the  goddess,  and  her  white  boys  ?  — 
Reader,  if  you  wrest  my  words  beyond  their  fair  con- 
struction, it  is  you,  and  not  I,  that  are  the  ApHl  Fool, 


A   QUAKERS'  MEETING. 

Stillborn  Silence!  thou  that  art 

Floodgate  of  the  deeper  heart ! 

Offspring  of  a  heavenly  kind ! 

Frost  o'  the  mouth,  and  thaw  o'  the  mind  I 

Secrecy's  confidant,  and  he 

Who  makes  religion  mystery! 

Admiration's  speaking'st  tongue! 

Leave  thy  desert  shades  among 

Reverend  hermits'  hallow'd  cells, 

AVhere  retried  devotion  dwells! 

AVith  thy  enthusiasms  come, 

Seize  our  tongues,  and  strike  us  dumb !  * 

Reader,  would'st  thou  know  what  true  peace  and 
(juiet  mean ;  would'st  thou  find  a  refuge  from  the 
noises  and  clamors  of  the  multitude ;  would'st  thou 
enjoy  at  once  solitude  and  society ;  would'st  thou  pos- 
sess the  depth  of  thine  own  spirit  in  stillness,  without 
being  shut  out  from  the  consolatory  faces  of  thy  species ; 
would'st  thou  be  alone,  and  yet  accompanied  ;  solitary, 
yet  not  desolate ;  singular,  yet  not  without  some  to 
keep  thee  in  countenance ;  a  unit  in  aggregate ;  a 
*  From  "  Poems  of  all  Sorts,"  by  Richard  Fleckno,  1653. 


A  QUAKERS'   MEETING.  81 

simple  in  composite :  —  come  with  me  into  a  Quakers' 
Meeting. 

Dost  thou  love  silence  deep  as  that  "  before  the 
winds  were  made?"  go  not  out  into  the  wilderness; 
descend  not  into  the  profundities  of  the  earth  ;  shut 
not  up  thy  casements ;  nor  pour  wax  into  the  little 
cells  of  thy  ears,  with  little-faith' d  self-mistrusting 
Ulysses.  —  Retire  with  me  into  a  Quakers'  Meeting. 

For  a  man  to  refrain  even  from  good  words,  and  to 
hold  his  peace,  it  is  commendable ;  but  for  a  multitude, 
it  is  great  mastery. 

What  is  the  stillness  of  the  desert,  compared  with 
this  place  ?  what  the  uncommunicating  muteness  of 
fishes  ?  —  here  the  goddess  reigns  and  revels.  —  "  Bo- 
reas,  and  Cesias,  and  Ai'gestes  loud,"  do  not  with  their 
inter-confounding  uproars  more  augment  the  brawl  — 
nor  the  waves  of  the  blown  Baltic  with  their  clubbed 
sounds  —  than  their  opposite  (Silence  her  sacred  self) 
is  multiplied  and  rendered  more  intense  by  numbers, 
and  by  sympathy.  She  too  hath  her  deeps,  that  call 
unto  deeps.  Negation  itself  hath  a  positive  more  and 
less  ;  and  closed  eyes  would  seem  to  obscure  the  great 
obscurity  of  midnight. 

There  are  wounds  which  an  imperfect  solitude 
cannot  heal.  By  imperfect  I  mean  that  which  a  man 
enjoyeth  by  himself.  The  perfect  is  that  which  he 
can  sometimes  attain  in  crowds,  but  noAvhere  so  abso- 
lutely as  in  a  Quakers'  Meeting.  Those  first  hermits 
did  certainly  understand  this  principle,  when  they  re- 
tired into  Egy|)tian  solitudes,  not  singly,  but  in  shoals, 
to  enjoy  one  anotlier's  want  of  conversation.  The 
Carthusian  is  bound  to  his  brethren  by  this  agreeing 
spirit  of  incommunicativeness.      In  secular   occasions, 

VOL.    III.  6 


82  A   QUAKERS'   MEETING. 

what  SO  pleasant  as  to  be  reading  a  book  through  a 
long  winter  evening,  with  a  friend  sitting  bj  —  say,  a 
wife  —  he,  or  she,  too,  (if  that  be  probable,)  reading 
another,  without  interruption,  or  oral  communication  ? 
—  can  there  be  no  sympathy  without  the  gabble  of 
words  ?  —  away  with  this  inhuman,  shy,  single,  shade- 
and-cavern-haunting  solitariness.  Give  me,  Master 
Zimmerraann,  a  sympathetic  solitude. 

To  pace  alone  in  the  cloisters,  or  side  aisles  of  Home 
cathedral,  time-stricken  ; 

Or  under  hanging  mountains, 
Or  by  the  fall  of  fountains ; 

is  but  a  vulgar  luxury,  compared  with  that  which  those 
enjoy  who  come  together  for  the  purposes  of  more 
complete,  abstracted  solitude.  This  is  the  loneliness 
"  to  be  felt."  —  The  Abbey  Church  of  Westminster 
hath  nothing  so  solemn,  so  spirit-soothing,  as  the  naked 
w  :11s  and  benches  of  a  Quakers'  Meeting.  Here  are 
no  tombs,  no  inscriptions,  — 

Sands,  ignoble  things, 
Dropt  from  the  mined  sides  of  kings;  — 

but  here  is  something  which  throws  Antiquity  herself 
mto  the  foreground  —  Silence  —  eldest  of  things  — 
language  of  old  Night  —  primitive  Discourser  —  to 
which  the  insolent  decays  of  mouldering  grandeur 
have  but  arrived  by  a  violent,  and,  as  we  may  say, 
unnatural  progression. 

IIow  reverend  is  the  view  of  these  hushed  heads, 
Looking  tranquillity! 

Nothing-plotting,    nought-cabalhng,     unmlschievous 


A  QUAKERS'   MEETING.  8S 

synod  I  convocation  without  intrigue  !  parliament  with- 
out debate  !  what  a  lesson  dost  thou  read  to  council, 
and  to  consistory  !  —  if  my  pen  treat  of  you  lightly  — 
as  haply  it  will  wander  —  yet  my  spirit  hath  gravely 
felt  the  wisdom  of  your  custom,  when  sitting  among 
you  in  deepest  peace,  which  some  out-welling  tears 
would  rather  confirm  than  disturb,  I  have  reverted  to 
the  times  of  your  beginnings,  and  the  sowings  of  the 
seed  by  Fox  and  Dewesbury.  I  have  witnessed  that 
which  brought  before  my  eyes  your  heroic  tranquillity, 
inflexible  to  the  rude  jests  and  serious  violences  of  the 
insolent  soldiery,  republican  or  royalist,  sent  to  molest 
you,  —  for  ye  sate  betwixt  the  fires  of  two  persecutions, 
the  outcast  and  offscouring  of  church  and  presbytery. 
I  have  seen  the  reeling  sea-ruffian,  who  had  wandered 
into  your  receptacle  with  the  avowed  intention  of  dis- 
turbing your  quiet,  fi-om  the  very  spirit  of  the  place 
receive  in  a  moment  a  new  heart,  and  presently  sit 
among  ye  as  a  lamb  amidst  lambs.  And  I  remember 
Penn  before  his  accusers,  and  Fox  in  the  bail-dock, 
where  he  was  lifted  up  in  spirit,  as  he  tells  us,  and 
"  the  Judge  and  the  Jury  became  as  dead  men  under 
liis  feet." 

Reader,  if  you  are  not  acquainted  with  it,  I  would 
recommend  to  you,  above  all  church-narratives,  to  read 
Sewel's  "  History  of  the  Quakers."  It  is  in  folio,  and 
is  the  abstract  of  the  Jounials  of  Fox  and  the  primitive 
Friends.  It  is  far  more  edifying  and  affecting  than 
anything  you  will  read  of  Wesley  and  his  colleagues. 
Here  is  nothing  to  stagger  you,  nothing  to  make  you 
mistrust,  no  suspicion  of  alloy,  no  drop  or  dreg  of  the 
worldly  or  ambitious  spirit.  You  will  here  read  the 
true  story  of  that  much-injured,  ridiculed  man,  (who 


84  A  QUAKERS'   MEETING. 

perhaps  liatli  been  a  byword  in  your  mouth,)  —  James 
Naylor :  what  dreadful  sufferings,  with  what  patience, 
he  endured,  even  to  the  boring  through  of  his  tongue 
with  redhot  irons,  without  a  murmur ;  and  with  what 
strength  of  mmd,  wlien  tlie  delusion  he  had  fallen  into, 
which  they  stigmatized  for  blasphemy,  had  given  way  to 
clearer  thoughts,  he  could  renounce  liis  error,  in  a  strain 
of  the  beautifullest  humility,  yet  keep  his  first  grounds, 
and  be  a  Quaker  still !  —  so  different  fi-om  the  prac- 
tice of  your  common  converts  from  enthusiasm,  who, 
when  they  apostatize,  apostatize  all,  and  think  they  can 
never  get  far  enough  from  the  society  of  their  former 
errors,  even  to  the  renunciation  of  some  saving  truths, 
with  which  they  had  been  mingled,  not  implicated. 

Get  the  Writings  of  John  Woolman  by  heart ;  and 
love  the  early  Quakers. 

How  far  the  followers  of  these  good  men  in  our  days 
have  kept  to  the  primitive  spirit,  or  in  what  proportion 
they  have  substituted  formality  for  it,  the  Judge  of 
Spu'its  can  alone  determine.  I  have  seen  faces  in  their 
assemblies,  upon  which  the  dove  sate  visibly  brooding. 
Others  again  I  have  watched,  when  my  thoughts 
should  have  been  better  engaged,  in  which  I  could 
possibly  detect  nothing  but  a  blank  inanity.  But  quiet 
was  in  all,  and  the  disposition  to  unanimity,  and  the 
absence  of  the  fierce  controversial  workings.  If  the 
spiritual  pretensions  of  the  Quakers  have  abated,  at 
least  they  make  few  pretences.  Hypocrites  they  cer- 
tainly are. not,  in  their  preaching.  It  is  seldom  indeed 
that  you  shall  see  one  get  up  amongst  them  to  hold 
forth.  Only  now  and  then  a  trembling,  female,  gener- 
ally ancient  voice  is  heard  —  you  cannot  guess  from 
what   part  of  the  meeting  it  proceeds  —  with  a  low. 


A   QUAKEKS'   MEETING.  85 

buzzing,  musical  sound,  laying  out  a  few  woids  which 
"  she  thought  might  suit  the  condition  of  some  pres- 
ent," with  a  quaking  diffidence,  which  leaves  no  pos- 
sibility of  supposing  that  anything  of  female  vanity  was 
mixed  up,  where  the  tones  were  so  full  of  tenderness, 
and  a  restraining  modesty.  The  men,  for  what  I  have 
observed,  speak  seldomer. 

Once  only,  and  it  was  some  years  ago,  I  witnessed  a 
sample  of  the  old  Foxian  orgasm.  It  was  a  man  of 
giant  stature,  who,  as  Wordsworth  phrases  it,  might 
have  danced  "  from  head  to  foot  equipt  in  iron  mail." 
His  frame  was  of  iron  too.  But  he  was  malleable. 
I  saw  him  shake  all  over  with  the  spirit  —  I  dare  not 
say  of  delusion.  The  strivings  of  the  outer  man  were 
unutterable  —  he  seemed  not  to  speak,  but  to  be  spoken 
from.  I  saw  the  strong  man  bowed  down,  and  his 
knees  to  fail  —  his  joints  all  seemed  loosening  —  it  was 
a  figure  to  set  off  against  Paul  Preaching  —  the  words 
he  uttered  were  few,  and  sound  —  he  was  evidently 
resisting  his  will  —  keeping  down  his  own  word-wisdom 
with  more  mighty  effort,  than  the  world's  orators  strain 
for  theirs.  "  He  had  been  a  wit  in  his  youth,"  he  told 
us,  with  expressions  of  a  sober  remorse.  And  it  was 
not  till  long  after  the  impression  had  begun  to  wear 
away,  that  I  was  enabled,  with  something  like  a  smile, 
to  recall  the  striking  incongruity  of  the  confession  — 
understanding  the  term  in  its  worldly  acceptation  — 
with  the  frame  and  physiognomy  of  tlie  person  before 
me.  His  brow  would  have  scared  away  the  Levites 
—  the  Jocos  Risus-que  —  faster  than  the  Loves  fled  the 
face  of  Dis  at  Enna.  By  ivit^  even  in  liis  youth,  I  will 
be  sworn,  he  understood  something  far  within  the  limits 
of  an  allowable  liberty. 


86     THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW  SCHOOLMASTER. 

More  frequently  the  Meeting  is  broken  up  without 
a  word  having  been  spoken.  But  the  mind  has  been 
fed.  You  go  away  with  a  sermon  not  made  with 
hands.  You  have  been  in  the  milder  caverns  of  Tro- 
phonius  ;  or  as  in  some  den,  where  that  fiercest  and 
savagest  of  all  wild  creatures,  the  Tongue,  that  unruly 
member,  has  strangely  lain  tied  up  and  captive.  You 
have  bathed  with  stillness.  O  when  the  spirit  is  sore 
fretted,  even  tired  to  sickness  of  the  janglings,  and  non- 
sense-noises of  the  world,  what  a  balm  and  a  solace 
it  is,  to  go  and  seat  yourself,  for  a  quiet  half  hour, 
upon  some  undisputed  corner  of  a  bench,  among  the 
gentle  Quakers  ! 

Their  garb  and  stillness  conjoined,  present  a  uni- 
formity, tranquil  and  herd-like  —  as  in  the  pasture  — 
"forty  feeding  like  one." 

The  very  garments  of  a  Quaker  seem  incapable  of 
receiving  a  soil ;  and  cleanliness  in  them  to  be  some- 
thing more  than  the  absence  of  its  contrary.  Every 
Quakeress  is  a  lily ;  and  when  they  come  up  in  bands 
to  their  Whitsun-conferences,  whitening  the  easterly 
streets  of  the  metropolis,  from  all  parts  of  the  United 
Kingdom,  they  show  lil^e  troops  of  the  Shining  Ones. 


THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW  SCHOOLMASTER. 

]\Iy  reading  has  been  lamentably  desultory  and  im- 
methodieal.  Odd,  out  of  the  way,  old  English  plays 
and    treatises,    have    supplied    me    with    most    of    my 


THE    OLD  AND   THE   NEW   SCHOOLMASIER.  87 

notions,  and  ways  of  feeling.  In  everytliing  that  re- 
lates  to  science^  I  am  a  whole  Encyclopgedia  behind 
the  rest  of  the  world.  I  should  have  scarcely  cut  a 
figure  among  the  franklins,  or  country  gentlemen,  in 
King  John's  days.  I  know  less  geography  than  a 
schoolboy  of  six  weeks'  standing.  To  me  a  map  of 
old  Ortelius  is  as  authentic  as  Arrowsmith.  I  do  not 
know  whereabout  Africa  merges  into  Asia  ;  whether 
Ethiopia  lie  in  one  or  other  of  those  great  divisions ; 
nor  can  form  the  remotest  conjecture  of  the  position 
of  New  South  Wales,  or  Van  Diemen's  Land.  Yet 
do  I  hold  a  correspondence  with  a  very  dear  friend  in 
the  first-named  of  these  two  Terrae  Incognitas.  I  have 
no  astronomy.  I  do  not  know  where  to  look  for  the 
Bear,  or  Charles's  Wain ;  the  place  of  any  star ;  or 
the  name  of  any  of  them  at  sight.  I  guess  at  Venus 
only  by  her  brightness ;  and  if^  the  sun  on  some  por- 
tentous mom  were  to  make  his  first  appearance  in  tho 
West,  I  verily  believe,  that,  while  all  the  world  were 
gasping  in  apprehension  about  me,  I  alone  should 
stand  unterrified,  fi'om  sheer  incuriosity  and  want  of 
observation.  Of  history  and  chronology  I  possess  some 
vague  points,  such  as  one  cannot  help  picking  up  in 
the  course  of  miscellaneous  study  ;  but  I  never  deliber- 
ately sat  down  to  a  chronicle,  even  of  my  own  country. 
I  have  most  dim  apprehensions  of  the  four  great  mon- 
archies ;  and  sometimes  the  Assyrian,  sometimes  the 
Persian,  floats  as  first,  in  my  fancy.  I  make  the 
widest  conjectures  concerning  Egyjit  and  her  shep- 
herd kings.  My  friend  M.,  with  great  painstaking, 
got  me  to  think  I  understood  the  first  proposition  in 
Euclid,  but  gave  me  over  *n  despair  at  the  secund.  I 
am  entirely  unacquainted  with  the  modern  languages; 


88  THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW  SCHOOLMASTER. 

and,  like  a  better  man  than  myself,  have  "  small  Latin 
and  less  Greek."  I  am  a  stranger  to  the  shapes  and 
texture  of  the  commonest  trees,  herbs,  flowers,  —  not 
from  the  circumstance  of  my  being  town-born,  —  for 
I  should  have  brought  the  same  inobservant  spirit  into 
the  world  with  me,  had  I  first  seen  it  "  on  Devon's 
leafy  shores,"  —  and  am  no  less  at  a  loss  among  purely 
town-objects,  tools,  engines,  mechanic  processes.  Not 
that  I  affect  ignorance  —  but  my  head  has  not  many 
mansions,  nor  spacious ;  and  I  have  been  obliged  to  fill 
it  with  such  cabinet  curiosities  as  it  can  hold  without 
aching.  I  sometimes  wonder  how  I  have  passed  my 
probation  with  so  little  discrecht  in  the  world,  as  I  have 
done,  upon  so  meagre  a  stock.  But  the  fact  is,  a  man 
may  do  very  well  with  a  very  little  knowledge,  and 
scarce  be  found  out,  in  mixed  company  ;  everybody  is 
so  much  more  ready  to  produce  his  own,  than  to  call 
for  a  display  of  your  acquisitions.  But  in  a  tete-d-tete 
there  is  no  shuffling.  The  truth  will  out.  There  is 
notliing  which  I  dread  so  much  as  the  being  left  alone 
for  a  quarter  of  an  hour  with  a  sensible,  well-informed 
man,  that  does  not  know  me.  I  lately  got  into  a 
dilemma  of  this  sort. 

In  one  of  my  daily  jaunts  between  Bishopsgate  and 
Shacklewell,  the  coach  stopped  to  take  up  a  staid-look- 
ing gentleman,  about  the  wrong  side  of  thirty,  who 
was  giving  his  parting  direcuons  (while  the  steps  were 
adjusting),  in  a  tone  of  mild  authority,  to  a  tall  youth, 
who  seemed  to  be  neither  his  clerk,  his  son,  nor  his 
servant,  but  something  partaking  of  all  tliree.  The 
youth  was  dismissed,  and  we  drove  on.  As  we  were 
the  sole  passengers,  he  naturally  enough  addressed  his 
conversation  to  me ;  and  w-e  discussed  the  merits  of  the 


THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW  SCHOOLMASTER.     89 

fare,  the  civility  and  punctuality  of  the  driver;  the 
circumstance  of  an  opposition  coach  having  been  lately 
set  up,  with  the  pi'obabilities  of  its  success,  —  to  all 
which  I  was  enabled  to  return  pretty  satisfactory  an- 
swers, having  been  drilled  into  this  kind  of  etiquette  by 
some  years'  daily  practice  of  riding  to  and  fro  in  the 
stage  aforesaid,  —  when  he  suddenly  alanned  me  by  a 
startling  question,  whether  I  had  seen  the  show  of  prize 
cattle  that  morning  in  Smithfield  ?  Now,  as  I  had  not 
seen  it,  and  do  not  greatly  care  for  such  sort  of  exhibi- 
tions, I  was  obliged  to  return  a  cold  negative.  He 
seemed  a  little  mortified,  as  well  as  astonished,  at  my 
declaration,  as  (it  appeared)  he  was  just  come  fresh 
from  the  sight,  and  doubtless  had  hoped  to  compare 
notes  on  the  subject.  However,  he  assured  me  that  I 
had  lost  a  fine  treat,  as  it  far  exceeded  the  show  of  last 
year.  We  were  now  approaching  Norton  Folgate, 
when  the  sight  of  some  shop-goods  ticketed  freshened 
him  up  into  a  dissertation  upon  the  cheapness  of  cot- 
tons this  spring.  I  was  now  a  little  in  heart,  as  the 
nature  of  my  morning  avocations  had  brought  me  into 
some  sort  of  familiarity  with  the  raw  material ;  and  I 
was  surprised  to  find  how  eloquent  I  was  becoming 
on  the  state  of  the  India  market,  —  when,  presently, 
he  dashed  my  incipient  vanity  to  the  earth  at  once, 
by  inquiring  whether  I  had  ever  made  any  calcula- 
tion as  to  the  value  of  the  rental  of  all  the  retail 
shops  in  London.  Had  he  asked  of  me  what  song  the 
Siren  sang,  or  what  name  Achilles  assumed  when  ho 
hid  himself  among  women,  I  might,  with  Sir  Thomas 
Browne,  have  hazarded  a  "  wide  solution."  *  ]\Iy  com- 
panion saw  my  embarrassment,  and,  the  almshouses  be- 

*  Urn  BuriaL 


90  THE    OLD  AND   THE  NEW   SCHOOLMASTER. 

yoiid  Shoreditch  just  coming  in  ^'ie^v,  with  great  good- 
nature and  dexterity,  shifted  his  conversation  to  the 
subject  of  public  charities;  which  led  to  the  compara- 
tive merits  of  provision  for  the  poor  in  past  and  present 
times,  with  observations  on  the  old  monastic  institu 
tions,  and  charitable  orders ;  but,  finding  me  rather 
dimly  impressed  with  some  glimmering  notions  from 
old  poetic  associations,  than  strongly  fortified  with  any 
speculations  reducible  to  calculation  on  the  subject,  he 
gave  the  matter  up ;  and,  the  country  begmning  to 
open  more  and  more  upon  us,  as  we  approached  the 
turnpike  at  Kingsland  (the  destined  termination  of  his 
journey),  he  put  a  home  thrust  upon  me,  in  the  most 
mifortunate  position  he  could  have  chosen,  by  advanc- 
ing some  queries  relative  to  the  North  Pole  Expedition. 
While  I  was  muttering;  out  somethino;  about  the  Pano- 
rama  of  those  strange  regions  (which  I  had  actually 
seen),  by  way  of  parrymg  the  question,  the  coach  stop- 
ping relieved  me  fi'om  any  further  apprehensions.  My 
companion  getting  out,  left  me  in  the  comfortable  pos 
session  of  my  ignorance ;  and  I  heard  him,  as  he  went 
off,  putting  questions  to  an  outside  passenger,  who  had 
alighted  with  him,  regarding  an  epidemic  disorder  that 
had  been  rife  about  Dalston,  and  which  my  fiiend  as- 
sured him  had  gone  through  five  or  six  schools  in  that 
neighborhood.  The  truth  now  flashed  upon  me,  that 
my  companion  was  a  schoolmaster ;  and  that  the  youth, 
whom  he  had  parted  fi'om  at  our  first  acquaintance, 
must  have  been  one  of  the  bigger  boys,  or  the  usher. 
He  was  evidently  a  kind-hearted  man,  who  did  not 
seem  so  much  desirous  of  provoking  discussion  by  the 
questions  which  he  put,  as  of  obtaining  information  at 
any  rate.     It  did  not  appear  that  he  took  any  interest, 


THE   OLD   AND   THE  NEW  SCHOOLMASTER.  91 

either,  in  such  kind  of  inquiries,  for  their  owti  sake ; 
but  that  he  was  in  some  way  bound  to  seek  for  knowl- 
edge. A  greenish-colored  coat,  wliich  he  had  on,  for- 
bade me  to  surmise  that  he  was  a  clergyman.  The 
adventure  gave  birtli  to  some  reflections  on  the  differ- 
ence between  persons  of  his  profession  in  past  and 
present  times. 

Rest  to  the  souls  of  those  fine  old  Pedagogues  ;  the 
breed,  long  since  extinct,  of  the  Lilys,  and  the  Lina- 
cres ;  who,  believing  that  all  learning  was  contained  in 
the  languages  which  they  taught,  and  despising  every 
other  acquirement  as  superficial  and  useless,  came  to 
their  task  as  to  a  sport !  Passing  from  infancy  to  age, 
they  dreamed  away  all  their  days  as  in  a  gi'ammar- 
school.  Revolving  in  a  perpetual  cycle  of  declensions, 
conjugations,  syntaxes,  and  prosodies  ;  renewing  con- 
stantly the  occupations  which  had  charmed  their  studi- 
ous childhood ;  rehearsing  continually  the  part  of  the 
past ;  life  must  have  slipped  from  them  at  last  like  one 
day.  They  were  always  in  their  first  garden,  reaping 
harvests  of  their  golden  time,  among  their  Flori  and 
their  Spici-legia  ;  in  Arcadia  still,  but  kings ;  the  ferule 
of  their  sway  not  much  harsher,  but  of  like  dignity 
with  that  mild  sceptre  attributed  to  king  Basileus ;  the 
Greek  and  Latin,  their  stately  Pamela  and  their  Philo- 
clea  ;  with  the  occasional  duncery  of  some  untoward 
tyro,  serving  for  a  refreshing  interlude  of  a  Mopsa  or  a 
cloAvn  Damoetas ! 

With  what  a  savor  doth  the  Preface  to  Colet's,  or 
(as  it  is  sometimes  called)  Paul's  Accidence,  set  fortli ! 
"  To  exhort  every  man  to  the  learning  of  gramirar, 
that  intendeth  to  attain  the  understanding  of  the 
tongues,    wherein    is    contained   a   great    treasury    of 


92  THE   OLD  AND  THE  NEW  SCHOOLMASfER. 

wisdom  and  knowledge,  it  would  seem  but  vain  and 
lost  labor;  for  so  much  as  it  is  known,  that  nothing 
can  surely  be  ended,  whose  beginning  is  either  feeble 
or  faulty ;  and  no  building  be  perfect  whereas  the 
foundation  and  groundwork  is  ready  to  fall,  and  unable 
to  uphold  the  burden  of  the  frame."  Hoav  well  doth 
this  stately  preamble  (comparable  to  those  which  Mil- 
ton commendeth  as  "  having  been  the  usage  to  prefix 
to  some  solemn  law,  then  first  promulgated  by  Solon, 
or  Lycurgus,")  correspond  with  and  illustrate  that 
pious  zeal  for  conformity,  expressed  in  a  succeeding 
clause,  which  would  fence  about  grammar-rules  with 
the  severity  of  faith-articles  !  —  "as  for  the  diversity 
of  grammars,  it  is  well  profitably  taken  away  by  the 
Kings  Majesties  wisdom,  who,  foreseeing  the  inconven- 
ience, and  favourably  providing  the  remedie,  caused  one 
kind  of  grammar  by  sundry  learned  men  to  be  dili- 
gently drawn,  and  so  to  be  set  out,  only  everywhere 
to  be  taught,  for  the  use  of  learners,  and  for  the  hurt 
in  changing  of  schoolmaisters."  What  a  gusto  in  that 
which  follows  :  "  wherein  it  is  profitable  that  he  [the 
pupil]  can  orderly  decline  his  noun,  and  his  verb." 
His  noun  ! 

The  fine  dream  is  fading  away  fast ;  and  the  least 
concern  of  a  teacher  in  the  present  day  is  to  inculcate 
grammar-rules. 

The  modern  schoolmaster  is  expected  to  know  a  little 
of  e^'erything,  because  his  pupil  is  required  not  to  be 
enti  rely  ignorant  of  anything.  He  must  be  superficially, 
if  I  may  so  say,  omniscient.  He  is  to  know  something 
of  pneumatics ;  of  chemistry ;  of  whatever  is  curious, 
or  proper  to  excite  the  attention  of  the  youthful  mind  ; 
an  insight  into  mechanics  is  desirable,  with  a  touch  of 


THE   OLD  AND   THE  NEW  SCHOOLMASTER.  93 

statistics ;  the  quality  of  soils,  &c.,  botany,  the  consti- 
tution of  his  country,  cum  multis  aliis.  You  may  get  a 
notion  of  some  part  of  his  expected  duties  by  consult- 
ing the  famous  Tractate  on  Education  addressed  to  Mr. 
Hartlib. 

All  these  things —  these,  or  the  desire  of  them,  —  he 
is  expected  to  instil,  not  by  set  lessons  from  professors, 
which  he  may  charge  in  the  bill,  but  at  school-intervals, 
as  he  walks  the  streets,  or  saunters  through  green  fields 
(those  natural  instructors),  with  his  pupils.  The  least 
part  of  what  is  expected  from  him,  is  to  be  done  in 
school-hours.  He  must  insinuate  knowledge  at  the 
mollia  tempora  fandi.  He  must  seize  every  occasion  — 
the  season  of  the  year  —  the  time  of  the  day  —  a  pas- 
sing cloud  —  a  rainbow  —  a  wagon  of  hay  —  a  reg- 
iment of  soldiers  going  by  —  to  inculcate  something 
useful.  He  can  receive  no  pleasure  from  a  casual 
glimpse  of  Nature,  but  must  catch  at  it  as  an  object  of 
instruction.  He  must  interpret  beauty  into  the  pictu- 
resque. He  cannot  relish  a  beggar-man,  or  a  gypsy,  for 
thinking  of  the  suitable  improvement.  Nothing  comes 
to  him,  not  spoiled  by  the  sophisticating  medium  of 
moral  uses.  The  Universe  —  that  Great  Book,  as  it 
has  been  called  —  is  to  him  indeed,  to  all  intents  and 
purposes,  a  book,  out  of  which  he  is  doomed  to  read 
tedious  homilies  to  distasting  schoolboys.  Vacations 
themselves  are  none  to  lum,  he  is  only  rather  worse 
off  than  before ;  for  commonly  he  has  some  intrusive 
upper-boy  fastened  upon  him  at  such  times ;  some 
cadet  of  a  great  family ;  some  neglected  lump  of  nobil- 
ity, or  gentry ;  that  he  must  drag  after  him  to  the  play, 
to  the  Panorama,  to  Mr.  Bartley's  Orrery,  to  the 
Panopticon,  or  mto  the  country,  to  a  friend's  house,  or 


94     THL  OLD  AND  THE  NEW  SCHOOLMASTER. 

his  favorite  watering-place.  Wherever  lie  goes,  tliia 
uneasy  shadow  attends  him.  A  boy  is  at  his  board, 
and  in  his  path,  and  in  all  his  movements.  He  is  boy- 
rid,  sick  of  perpetual  boy. 

Boys  are  capital  fellows  in  their  own  way,  among 
their  mates ;  but  they  are  unwholesome  companions 
for  grown  people.  The  restraint  is  felt  no  less  on  the 
one  side,  than  on  the  other.  Even  a  child,  that 
"  plaything  for  an  hour,"  tires  always.  The  noises  of 
children,  playing  their  own  fancies  —  as  I  now  hearken 
to  them  by  fits,  sporting  on  the  green  before  my  win- 
dow, while  I  am  engaged  in  these  grave  speculations  at 
my  neat  suburban  retreat  at  Shacklewell  —  by  distance 
made  more  sweet  —  inexpressibly  take  fi'om  the  labor 
of  my  task.  It  is  like  writing  to  music.  They  seem 
to  modulate  my  periods.  They  ought  at  least  to  do  so, 
—  for  in  the  voice  of  that  tender  age  there  is  a  kind  of 
poetry,  far  unlike  the  harsh  prose-accents  of  man's 
conversation.  I  should  but  spoil  their  sport,  and 
diminish  my  own  sympathy  for  them,  by  mingling  in 
their  pastime. 

I  would  not  be  domesticated  all  my  days  with  a  per- 
son of  very  superior  capacity  to  my  own,  —  not,  if  I 
know  myself  at  all,  from  any  considerations  of  jealousy 
or  self-comparison,  for  the  occasional  communion  with 
such  minds  has  constituted  the  fortune  and  felicity  of 
my  life,  —  but  the  habit  of  too  constant  intercourse  with 
spirits  above  you,  instead  of  raising  you,  keeps  you 
down.  Too  fi'equent  doses  of  original  thinking  fi'om 
others,  restrain  what  lesser  portion  of  that  faculty  you 
Oiay  possess  of  your  own.  You  get  entangled  in  an- 
other man's  mind,  even  as  you  lose  youi'self  in  another 
man's  grounds.     You  are  walking  with  a  tall  varlet, 


THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW  SCHOOLMASTER.     95 

whose  strides  outpace  yours  to  lassitude.  The  con- 
stant operation  of  such  potent  agency  would  reduce 
me,  I  am  convinced,  to  imbecility.  You  may  derive 
thoughts  from  others ;  your  way  of  thinking,  the 
mould  in  which  your  thoughts  are  cast,  must  be  your 
own.  Intellect  may  be  imparted,  but  not  each  man's 
intellectual  frame. 

As  little  as  I  should  wish  to  be  always  thus  dragged 
upward,  as  little  (or  rather  still  less)  is  it  desirable  to 
be  stunted  downwards  by  your  associates.  The  trum- 
pet does  not  more  stun  you  by  its  loudness,  than  a 
whisper  teases  you  by  its  provoking  inaudibility. 

Why  are  we  never  quite  at  our  ease  in  the  presence 
of  a  schoolmaster  ?  —  because  we  are  conscious  that  he 
is  not  quite  at  his  ease  in  ours.  He  is  awkward,  and 
out  of  place,  in  the  society  of  his  equals.  He  comes 
like  Gulliver  fi'om  among  his  little  people,  and  he 
cannot  fit  the  stature  of  his  understanding  to  yours. 
He  cannot  meet  you  on  the  square.  He  wants  a  point 
given  him,  like  an  indifferent  whist-player.  He  is  so 
used  to  teaching,  that  he  wants  to  be  teaching  you. 
One  of  these  professors,  upon  my  complaining  that 
these  little  sketches  of  mine  were  anything  but  method- 
ical, and  that  I  was  unable  to  made  them  otherwise, 
kindly  offered  to  instruct  me  in  the  method  by  which 
young  gentlemen  in  Ms  seminary  were  taught  to  com- 
pose English  themes.  The  jests  of  a  schoolmaster  are 
coarse,  or  thin.  They  do  not  tell  out  of  school.  He  is 
under  the  restraint  of  a  formal  or  didactive  hypocrisy 
in  company,  as  a  clergyman  is  under  a  moral  one.  He 
can  no  more  let  his  intellect  loose  in  society,  than  the 
other  can  his  inclinations.  He  is  forlorn  among  hi» 
coevals  ;  his  juniors  cannot  be  his  friends. 


96     THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW  SCHOOLMASTER. 

"  J  take  blame  to  myself,"  said  a  sensible  man  of  this 
profession,  writing  to  a  friend  respecting  a  youth  who 
had  quitted  his  school  abruptly,  "  that  your  nephew 
was  not  more  attached  to  me.  But  persons  in  my  situ- 
ation are  more  to  be  pitied,  than  can  well  be  imagined. 
We  are  surrounded  by  young,  and,  consequently, 
ardently  affectionate  hearts,  but  we  can  never  hope  to 
share  an  atom  of  their  affections.  The  relation  of 
master  and  scholar  forbids  th*  .  Sow  pleasing  this 
must  he  to  you^  how  I  envy  your  feelings !  my  friends 
will  sometimes  say  to  me,  when  they  see  young  men 
whom  I  have  educated,  return  after  some  years'  ab- 
sence fi'om  school,  their  eyes  shining  with  pleasure, 
while  they  shake  hands  with  their  old  master,  bringing 
a  present  of  game  to  me,  or  a  toy  to  my  wife,  and 
thanking  me  in  the  warmest  terms  for  my  care  of  their 
education.  A  holiday  is  begged  for  the  boys ;  the  house 
is  a  scene  of  happiness  ;  I,  only,  am  sad  at  heart.  This 
fine-spirited  and  warm-hearted  youth,  who  fancies  he 
repays  his  master  with  gratitude  for  the  care  of  his 
boyish  years  —  this  young  man  —  in  the  eight  long 
years  I  watched  over  him  with  a  parent's  anxiety, 
never  could  repay  me  with  one  look  of  genume  feeling. 
He  was  proud,  when  I  praised  ;  he  was  submissive, 
when  I  reproved  him  ;  but  he  did  never  love  me ;  — 
and  what  he  now  mistakes  for  gratitude  and  kindness 
for  me,  is  but  the  pleasant  sensation,  which  all  persons 
feel  at  revisiting  the  scenes  of  their  boyish  hopes  and 
fears ;  and  the  seeing  on  equal  terms  the  man  they 
were  accustomed  to  look  up  to  with  reverence.  My 
wife  too,"  this  interesting  correspondent  goes  on  to  say, 
•'  mv  cnce  darling  Anna,  is  the  wife  of  a  schoolmaster. 
Wh'^p   T  married  her,  —  knowing  that  the  wife  of  a 


THE   OLD   AND   THE   NEW   SCHOOLMASTER.  97 

schoolmaster  ought  to  be  a  busy  notable  creature,  and 
fearing  that  my  gentle  Anna  would  ill  supply  the  loss 
of  my  dear  bustling  mother,  just  then  dead,  who  never 
sat  still,  was  in  every  part  of  the  house  in  a  moment, 
and  whom  I  was  obliged  sometimes  to  threaten  to  fasten 
down  in  a  chair,  to  save  her  fi'om  fatiguing  herself  to 
death,  —  I  expressed  my  fears  that  I  was  bringing  her 
into  a  way  of  life  unsuitable  to  her  ;  and  she,  who  loved 
me  tenderly,  promised  for  my  sake  to  exert  herself  to 
perform  the  duties  of  her  new  situation.  She  promised, 
and  she  has  kept  her  word.  What  wonders  will  not 
woman's  love  perform?  My  house  is  managed  with 
a  propriety  and  decorum  unknown  in  other  schools  ; 
my  boys  are  well  fed,  look  healthy,  and  have  every 
proper  accommodation ;  and  all  this  perforaied  with  a 
careful  economy,  that  never  descends  to  meanness. 
But  I  have  lost  my  gentle  helpless  Anna  !  When  we 
sit  down  to  enjoy  an  hour  of  repose  after  the  fatigue  of 
the  day,  I  am  compelled  to  listen  to  what  have  been 
her  usefiil  (and  they  are  really  useful)  employments 
through  the  day,  and  what  she  proposes  for  her 
to-morrow's  task.  Her  heart  and  her  features  are 
changed  by  the  duties  of  her  situation.  To  the  boys, 
she  never  appears  other  than  the  master'' s  tvife,  and  she 
looks  up  to  me  as  the  hoy''s  master ;  to  whom  all  show 
of  love  and  affection  would  be  highly  improper,  and 
unbecoming  the  dig-nity  of  her  situation  and  mine. 
Yet  tills  my  gratitude  forbids  me  to  hint  to  lier.  For 
my  sake  she  submitted  to  be  this  altered  creature,  and 
can  I  reproach  her  for  it  ?  "  —  For  the  communication 
of  this  letter,  I  am  indebted  to  my  cousin  Bridget. 

VOL.   III.  7 


98  IMPERFECT   SYMPATHIES. 


IMPERFECT  SYMPATHIES. 

1  am  of  a  constitution  so  general,  that  it  consorts  and  sympathizeth  with 
til  things;  I  have  no  antipathy,  or  rather  idiosyncrasy  in  anything. 
Those  natural  repugnancies  do  not  touch  me,  nor  do  I  behold  with  prej- 
ndice  the  French,  Italian,  Spaniard,  or  Dutch.  —  Religio  Medici. 

That  the  author  of  the  Religio  Medici,  mounted 
upon  the  airy  stilts  of  abstraction,  conversant  about 
notional  and  conjectural  essences ;  in  whose  categories 
of  Being  the  possible  took  the  upper  hand  of  the  actual ; 
should  have  overlooked  the  impertinent  individualities 
of  such  poor  concretions  as  mankind,  is  not  much  to  be 
admired.  It  is  rather  to  be  wondered  at,  that  in  the 
genus  of  animals  he  should  have  condescended  to  dis- 
tinguish that  si^ecies  at  all.  For  myself — earthbound 
and  fettered  to  the  scene  of  my  activities,  — 

Standing  on  earth,  not  rapt  above  the  sky, . 

I  confess  that  I  do  feel  the  differences  of  mankind, 
national  or  individual,  to  an  unhealthy  excess.  I  can 
look  with  no  indifferent  eye  upon  things  or  persons. 
Whatever  is,  is  to  me  a  matter  of  taste  or  distaste ;  or 
when  once  it  becomes  indifferent,  it  begins  to  be  dis- 
relishing. I  am,  in  plainer  words,  a  bundle  of  prej- 
udices —  made  up  of  likings  and  dislikings  —  the 
veriest  thrall  to  sympathies,  apathies,  antipathies.  In 
a  certain  sense,  I  hope  it  may  be  said  of  me  that  I 
am  a  lover  of  my  species.  I  can  feel  for  all  indiffer- 
ently, but  I  cannot  feel  towards  all  equally.  The 
more  purely  English  word  that  expresses  sympathy, 
will    better  explain    my  meaning.     I  can  be  a  fnend 


IMPERFECT  SYMPATHIES.  99 

to  a  worthy  man,  who  upon  another  account  cannot 
be  my  mate  or  fellow.  I  cannot  like  all  people  alike.* 
I  have  been  trying  all  my  life  to  like  Scotchmen, 
and  am  obliged  to  desist  from  the  experiment  in  de- 
spair. They  cannot  like  me,  —  and  in  truth,  I  never 
knew  one  of  that  nation  who  attempted  to  do  it.  There 
is  something  more  plain  and  ingenuous  in  their  mode 
of  proceeding.  We  know  one  another  at  first  sight. 
There  is  an  order  of  imperfect  intellects  (under  which 
mine  must  be  content  to  rank)  which  in  its  constitution 
is  essentially  anti-Caledonian.  The  owners  of  the  sort 
of  faculties  I  allude  to,  have  minds  rather  suggestive 
than  comprehensive.  They  have  no  pretences  to  much 
clearness  or  precision  in  their  ideas,  or  in  their  manner 
of  expressing  them.     Their  intellectual  wardrobe  (to 

*  I  would  be  understood  as  confining  myself  to  the  subject  of  imperfect 
sympathies.  To  nations  or  classes  of  men  there  can  be  no  direct  antipathy. 
There  may  be  individuals  born  and  constellated  so  opposite  to  anotlier 
individual  nature,  that  the  same  sphere  cannot  hold  them.  I  have  met 
with  my  moral  antipodes,  and  can  believe  the  story  of  two  persons  meet- 
ing (who  never  saw  one  another  before  in  their  lives)  and  instantly  fight- 
ing. 

We  by  proof  find  there  should  be 
'Twixt  man  and  man  such  an  antipatliy, 
That  though  he  can  show  no  just  reason  why 
For  any  former  wrong  or  injury. 
Can  neitlier  find  a  blemisli  in  his  fame. 
Nor  aught  in  face  or  feature  justly  blame, 
Can  challenge  or  accuse  him  of  no  evil, 
Yet  notwithstanding,  hates  him  as  a  devil. 

The  lines  are  from  old  Heywood's  "  Hierarchic  of  Angels,"  and  he  sub- 
joins a  curious  story  in  confirmation,  of  a  Spaniard  who  attempted  to 
assassinate  a  King  Ferdinand  of  Spain,  and  being  put  to  the  rack  could 
give  no  other  reason  for  the  deed  but  an  inveterate  antipathy  which  be 
had  taken  to  the  first  sight  of  the  King. 

The  cause  which  to  that  act  compell'd  him 
Was,  he  ne'er  loved  hrn  since  he  first  beheld  him. 


100  IMPERFECT   SYMPATHIES. 

confess  fairly)  has  few  whole  pieces  in  it.  They  are 
content  with  fragments  and  scattered  pieces  cf  Truth. 
She  presents  no  full  front  to  them  —  a  feature  or  side- 
face  at  the  most.  Hints  and  glimpses,  geiTns  and  crude 
essays  at  a  system,  is  the  utmost  they  pretend  to.  They 
beat  up  a  httle  game  peradventure  —  and  leave  it  to 
knottier  heads,  more  robust  constitutions,  to  run  it 
down.  The  light  that  lights  them  is  not  steady  and 
polar,  but  mutable  and  shifting ;  waxing,  and  again 
waning.  Their  conversation  is  accordingly.  They 
will  throw  out  a  random  word  in  or  out  of  season, 
and  be  content  to  let  it  pass  for  what  it  is  worth. 
They  cannot  speak  always  as  if  they  were  upon  their 
oath,  —  but  must  be  understood,  speaking  or  writing, 
with  some  abatement.  They  seldom  wait  to  mature 
a  proposition,  but  e'en  bring  it  to  market  in  the  green 
ear.  They  delight  to  impart  their  defective  discoveries 
as  they  arise,  without  waiting  for  their  full  develop- 
ment. They  are  no  systematizers,  and  would  but  err 
more  by  attempting  it.  Their  minds,  as  I  said  before, 
are  suo-ffestive  merely.  The  brain  of  a  time  Caledonian 
(if  I  am  not  mistaken)  is  constituted  upon  quite  a 
different  plan.  His  Minerva  is  bom  in  panoply.  You 
are  never  admitted  to  see  his  ideas  in  then*  growth,  — 
if,  indeed,  they  do  grow,  and  are  not  rather  put  to- 
gether upon  principles  of  clock-work.  You  never  catcli 
his  mind  in  an  undress.  He  never  hints  or  suggests 
anything,  but  unlades  his  stock  of  ideas  in  perfect  order 
and  completeness.  He  brings  his  total  wealth  into  com- 
pany, and  gravely  unpacks  it.  His  riches  are  always 
about  him.  He  never  stoops  to  catch  a  glittering 
something  in  your  presence  to  share  it  with  you,  before 
he  quite  knows  whether  it  be  true  touch  or  not.     You 


IMPERFECT   SYMPAFinES.  101 

cannot  cry  halves  to  anything  that  he  finds.  He  does 
not  find,  but  bring.  You  never  witness  his  first  ap- 
prehension of  a  thing.  His  understanding  is  always 
at  its  meridian, — you  never  see  the  first  dawn,  the 
early  streaks.  He  has  no  falterings  of  self-suspicion. 
Sunnises,  guesses,  misgivings,  half-intuitions,  semi-con 
sciousnesses,  partial  illuminations,  dim  instincts,  embryo 
conceptions,  have  no  place  in  his  brain  or  vocabulaiy. 
The  twilight  of  dubiety  never  falls  upon  him.  Is  he 
orthodox  —  he  has  no  doubts.  Is  he  an  infidel  —  he 
has  none  either.  Between  the  affirmative  and  the 
negative  there  is  no  border-land  with  him.  You  can- 
not  hover  with  him  upon  the  confines  of  truth,  or 
wander  in  the  maze  of  a  probable  argument.  He 
always  keeps  the  path.  You  cannot  make  excursions 
with  him  —  for  he  sets  you  right.  His  taste  never 
fluctuates.  His  morality  never  abates.  He  cannot 
compromise,  or  understand  middle  actions.  There 
can  be  but  a  right  and  a  wrong.  His  conversation 
is  as  a  book.  His  affinnations  have  the  sanctity  of 
an  oath.  You  must  speak  upon  the  square  with  him. 
He  stops  a  metaphor  like  a  suspected  person  in  an 
enemy's  country.  "  A  healthy  book  !  "  —  said  one  of 
his  countrymen  to  me,  who  had  ventured  to  give  that 
appellation  to  John  Buncle,  — "  Did  I  catch  rightly 
what  you  said?  I  have  heard  of  a  man  in  health, 
and  of  a  healthy  state  of  body,  but  I  do  not  see  how 
that  epithet  can  be  properly  applied  to  a  book."  Above 
all,  you  must  beware  of  indirect  expressions  before  a 
Caledonian.  Clap  an  extinguisher  upon  your  irony,  if 
you  are  unhappily  blest  with  a  vein  of  it.  Remember 
you  are  upon  your  oath.  I  have  a  print  of  a  gracefiil 
female  after  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  which  I   was  showing 


102  IMPERFECT   SYMPAiraES. 

off  to  Mr. .  After  lie  had  examined  it  mi- 
nutely, I  ventured  to  ask  him  how  he  liked  my  beauty 
(a  foolish  name  it  goes  by  among  my  friends),  —  when 
he  very  gravely  assured  me,  that  "  he  had  considerable 
respect  for  my  character  and  talents,"  (so  he  was 
pleased  to  say,)  "  but  had  not  given  himself  much 
thought  about  the  degree  of  my  personal  pretensions." 
The  misconception  staggered  me,  but  did  not  seem 
much  to  disconcert  him.  Persons  of  this  nation  are 
particularly  fond  of  affirming  a  truth  —  which  nobody 
doubts.  They  do  not  so  properly  affirm,  as  annunciate 
it.  They  do  indeed  appear  to  have  such  a  love  of 
truth  (as  if,  like  virtue,  it  were  valuable  for  itself,) 
that  all  truth  becomes  equally  valuable,  whether  the 
proposition  that  contains  it  be  new  or  old,  disputed,  or 
such  as  is  impossible  to  become  a  subject  of  disputa- 
tion. I  was  present  not  long  since  at  a  party  of  North 
Britons,  where  a  son  of  Burns  was  expected,  and  hap- 
pened to  drop  a  silly  expression  (in  my  South  British 
way),  that  I  wished  it  were  the  father  instead  of  the 
son,  —  when  four  of  them  started  up  at  once  to  inform 
me,  that  "  that  was  impossible,  because  he  was  dead." 
An  impracticable  wish,  it  seems,  was  more  than  they 
could  conceive.  Swift  has  hit  off  this  part  of  their  char- 
acter, namely,  their  love  of  truth,  in  his  biting  way,  but 
with  an  illiberality  that  necessarily  confines  the  passage 
to  the  margin.*     The  tediousness  of  these  people    is 

*  There  are  some  people  who  think  they  sufficiently  acquit  themselves, 
and  entertain  tlieir  company,  with  relating  facts  of  no  consequence,  not  at 
all  out  of  the  road  of  such  common  incidents  as  happen  every  day;  and 
this  I  have  observed  more  frequently  among  the  Scots  than  any  other 
nation,  wlio  are  very  careful  not  to  omit  the  minutest  circumstances  of 
time  or  phice;  which  kind  of  discourse,  if  it  were  not  a  little  relieved  by 
the  uncouth  terms  and  piirases,  as  well  as  accent  and  gesture  peculiar  to 
that  country,  would  be  hardly  tolerable.  —  Hints  towards  an  Essay  on  Con' 
venalum. 


IMPERFEOr  SYMPATHIES.  103 

certainly  provoking.  I  wonder  if  tliey  ever  tire  one 
another  ?  —  In  my  early  life  I  had  a  passionate  fond- 
ness for  the  poetry  of  Burns.  I  have  sometimes  fool 
ishly  hoped  to  ingratiate  myself  with  his  countrymen 
by  expressing  it.  But  I  have  always  found  that  a  true 
Scot  resents  your  admiration  of  his  compatriot,  even 
more  than  he  wou^ld  your  contempt  of  him.  The  lat- 
ter he  imputes  to  your  "  imperfect  acquaintance  with 
many  of  the  words  which  he  uses  ;  "  and  the  same  ob- 
jection makes  it  a  presumption  m  you  to  suppose  that 
you  can  admire  him.  Thomson  they  seem  to  have  for- 
gotten. Smollett  they  have  neither  forgotten  nor  for- 
given, for  his  delineation  of  Rory  and  his  companion, 
upon  their  first  introduction  to  our  metropolis.  Speak 
of  Smollett  as  a  great  genius,  and  they  will  retort  upon 
you  Hume's  History  compared  with  his  Continuation 
of  it.  Wliat  if  the  historian  had  continued  Humphrey 
Clinker  ? 

I  have,  in  the  abstract,  no  disrespect  for  Jews. 
They  are  a  piece  of  stubborn  antiquity,  compared  with 
wliich  Stonehenge  is  in  its  nonage.  They  date  beyond 
the  pyramids.  But  I  should  not  care  to  be  in  habits 
of  familiar  intercourse  with  any  of  that  nation.  I 
confess  that  I  have  not  the  nerves  to  enter  their 
synagogues.  Old  prejudices  cling  about  me.  I  can- 
not shake  off  the  story  of  Hugh  of  Lincoln.  Cen- 
turies of  injury,  contempt,  and  hate,  on  the  one  side, 
—  of  cloaked  revenge,  dissimulation,  and  hate,  on  the 
other,  —  between  our  and  their  fathers,  must  and  ought 
to  affect  the  blood  of  the  children.  I  cannot  believe  it 
can  run  clear  and  kindly  yet ;  or  that  a  few  fine  words, 
such  as  candor,  liberality,  the  light  of  a  nineteenth 
century,  can  close  up  the  breaches  of  so  deadly  a  dis- 


104  IMPERFECT    SYMPATHIES. 

union.  A  Hebrew  is  nowhere  congenial  to  me.  He 
is  least  distasteful  on  'Change  —  for  the  mercantile 
spirit  levels  all  distinctions,  as  all  are  beauties  in  the 
dark.  I  boldly  confess  that  I  do  not  relish  the  approxi- 
mation of  Jew  and  Christian,  which  has  become  so 
fiishionable.  The  reciprocal  endearments  have,  to  me, 
something  hypocritical  and  unnatural  in  them.  I  do 
not  like  to  see  the  Church  and  Synagogue  kissing  and 
congeeing  in  awkward  postures  of  an  affected  civility. 
If  they  are  converted,  why  do  they  not  come  over  to 
us  altogether?  Why  keep  up  a  fonii  of  separation, 
when  the  life  of  it  is  fled  ?  If  they  can  sit  with  us  at 
table,  why  do  they  keck  at  our  cookery  ?  I  do  not 
understand  these  half  convertites.  Jews  christianizing 
—  Christians  judaizing  —  puzzle  me.  I  like  fish  or 
flesh.  A  moderate  Jew  is  a  more  confounchng  piece 
of  anomaly  than  a  wet  Quaker.      The  spu'it  of  the 

synagogue  is  essentially  separative.    B would  have 

been  more  in  keeping  if  he  had  abided  by  the  faith  of 
his  forefathers.      There   is    a   fine  scorn    in    his  face, 

which   nature   meant   to   be    of Christians.     The 

Hebrew  spirit  is  strong  in  him,  in  spite  of  his  prose- 
lytism.  He  cannot  conquer  the  Shibboleth.  How  it 
breaks  out  when  he  sings,  "  The  Children  of  Israel 
passed  through  the  Red  Sea  !  "  The  auditors,  for  the 
moment,  are  as  Egyptians  to  him,  and  he  rides  over 
om-  necks  in  triumph.  There  is  no  mistaking  him. 
B has  a  strong  expression  of  sense  in  his  counte- 
nance, and  it  is  confirmed  by  his  singing.  The  founda- 
tion of  his  vocal  excellence  is  sense.  He  sings  with 
undei'standing,  as  Kemble  delivered  dialogue.  He 
would  sing  the  Commandments,  and  give  an  appro- 
priate character  to  each    prohibition.     His  nation,  iu 


IMPERFECT   SYMPATHIES.  105 

general,  have  not  over-sensible  countenances.  How 
should  they  ?  —  but  you  seldom  see  a  silly  expression 
among  them.  Gain,  and  the  pursuit  of  gain,  sharpen 
a  man's  visage.  I  never  heard  of  an  idiot  being  born 
among  them.  Some  admire  the  Jewish  female  physi- 
ognomy. I  admire  it  —  but  with  trembling.  Jael  had 
those  full  dark  inscrutable  eyes. 

In  the  Negro  countenance  you  will  often  meet  with 
strong  traits  of  benignity.  I  have  felt  yearnings  of 
tenderness  towards  some  of  these  faces  —  or  rather 
masks  —  that  have  looked  out  kindly  upon  one  in 
casual  encounters  in  the  streets  and  highways.  I  love 
what  Fuller  beautifully  calls  —  these  "  images  of  God 
cut  in  ebony."  But  I  should  not  like  to  associate  with 
them,  to  share  my  meals  and  my  good  nights  with 
them — because  they  are  black. 

I  love  Quaker  ways,  and  Quaker  worship.  I  vener- 
ate the  Quaker  principles.  It  does  me  good  for  the 
rest  of  the  day  when  I  meet  any  of  their  people  in  my 
path.  When  I  am  ruffled  or  disturbed  by  any  occur- 
rence, the  sight  or  quiet  voice  of  a  Quaker  acts  upon 
me  as  a  ventilator,  lightening  the  air,  and  taking  off  a 
load  from  the  bosom.  But  I  cannot  like  the  Quakers 
(as  Desdemona  would  say)  "  to  live  with  them."  1 
am  all  over  sophisticated  —  with  humors,  fancies,  crav- 
ing hourly  sympathy.  I  must  have  books,  pictures, 
theatres,  chitchat,  scandal,  jokes,  ambiguities,  and  a 
thousand  whim  whams,  which  their  simpler  taste  can  do 
without.  I  should  starve  at  their  primitive  banquet. 
My  appetites  are  too  high  for  the  salads  which  (accord- 
ing to  Evelyn)  Eve  dressed  for  the  angel,  my  gusto  t(y\ 
excited 

To  sit  a  guest  with  Daniel  at  liis  pulse 


106  IMPERFECT   SYMPATHIE&. 

The  indirect  answers  which  Quakers  are  often  fonnd 
to  return  to  a  question  put  to  them  may  be  explained, 
I  think,  without  the  vulgar  assumption  that  they  are 
more  given  to  evasion  and  equivocating  than  other 
people.  They  naturally  look  to  their  words  more 
carefully,  and  are  more  cautious  of  committing  them- 
selves. They  have  a  peculiar  character  to  keep  up 
on  this  head.  They  stand  in  a  manner  upon  their 
veracity.  A  Quaker  is  by  law  exempted  from  taking 
an  oath.  The  custom  of  resorting  to  an  oath  in  ex- 
treme cases,  sanctified  as  it  is  by  all  religious  antiquity, 
is  apt  (it  must  be  confessed)  to  introduce  into  the  laxer 
sort  of  minds  the  notion  of  two  kinds  of  truth,  —  the 
one  applicable  to  the  solemn  affairs  of  justice,  and  the 
other  to  the  common  proceedings  of  daily  intercourse. 
As  truth  bound  upon  the  conscience  by  an  oath  can  be 
but  truth,  so  in  the  common  affirmatians  of  the  shop 
and  the  market-place  a  latitude  is  expected,  and  con- 
ceded upon  questions  wanting  this  solemn  covenant. 
Somethino;  less  than  truth  satisfies.  It  is  common  to 
hear  a  person  say,  "  You  do  not  expect  me  to  speak  as 
if  I  were  upon  my  oath."  Hence  a  great  deal  of  in- 
correctness and  inadvertency,  short  of  falsehood,  creeps 
into  ordinary  conversation  ;  and  a  kind  of  secondary  or 
laic-truth  is  tolerated,  where  clergy-truth  —  oath-truth, 
by  the  nature  of  the  circumstances,  is  not  required.  A 
Quaker  knows  none  of  this  distinction.  His  simple 
affirmation  being  received,  upon  the  most  sacred  occa- 
sions, without  any  further  test,  stamps  a  value  upon  the 
words  which  he  is  to  use  upon  the  most  indifferent 
topics  of  life.  He  looks  to  them,  naturally,  with  more 
severity.  You  can  have  of  him  no  more  than  his  word. 
Ho  knows,  if  he  is  caught  tripping  in  a  casual  expres- 


IMPERFECT  SYMPATHIES.  107 

Bion,  he  forfeits,  for  himself  at  least,  his  claim  to  the 
invidious  exemption.  He  knows  that  his  syllables  are 
weighed ;  and  how  far  a  consciousness  of  this  par- 
ticular watchfulness,  exerted  against  a  person,  has  a 
tendency  to  produce  indirect  answers,  and  a  diverting 
of  the  question  by  honest  means,  might  be  illustrated, 
and  the  practice  justified,  by  a  more  sacred  example 
than  is  proper  to  be  adduced  upon  this  occasion.  The 
admirable  presence  of  mind,  which  is  notorious  in 
Quakers  upon  all  contingencies,  might  be  traced  to 
this  imposed  self-watchfulness,  if  it  did  not  seem 
rather  an  humble  and  secular  scion  of  that  old  stock  of 
religious  constancy,  which  never  bent  or  faltered,  in 
the  Primitive  Friends,  or  gave  way  to  the  winds  of 
persecution,  to  the  violence  of  judge  or  accuser,  under 
trials  and  racking  examinations.  "  You  will  never 
be  the  wiser,  if  I  sit  here  answering  your  questions 
till  midnight,"  said  one  of  those  upright  Justicers  to 
Penn,  who  had  been  putting  law-cases  with  a  puzzling 
subtlety.  "  Thereafter  as  the  answers  may  be,"  re- 
torted the  Quaker.  The  astonishing  composure  of 
this  people  is  sometimes  ludicrously  displayed  in  lighter 
instances.  I  was  travelling  in  a  stage-coach  with  three 
male  Quakers,  buttoned  up  in  the  straitest  non-con- 
formity of  their  sect.  We  stopped  to  bait  at  Andover, 
where  a  meal,  partly  tea  apparatus,  partly  suppi  r,  was 
set  before  us.  My  friends  confined  themselves  to  tlie 
tea-table.  I,  in  my  way,  took  supper.  When  the 
landlady  brought  in  the  bill,  the  eldest  of  my  compan- 
ions discovered  that  she  had  charged  for  both  meals. 
This  was  resisted.  Mine  hostess  was  very  clamorous 
and  positive.  Some  mild  arguments  were  used  on  the 
part  of  the  Quakers,  for  which  the  heated  mind  of  the 


108  WITCHES,   AND   OTHER  NIGHT   FEARS. 

good  lady  seemed  by  no  means  a  fit  recipient.  Tlie 
guard  came  in  with  his  usual  peremptoiy  notice.  The 
Quakers  pulled  out  their  money  and  formally  tendered 
it  —  so  much  for  tea,  —  I,  in  humble  imitation,  tender- 
mg  mine  —  for  the  supper  which  I  had  taken.  She 
would  not  relax  in  her  demand.  So  they  all  three 
quietly  put  up  then*  silver,  as  chd  myself,  and  marched 
out  of  the  room,  the  eldest  and  gravest  gomg  first,  with 
myself  closing  up  the  rear,  who  thought  I  could  not  do 
better  than  follow  the  example  of  such  grave  and  war- 
rantable personages.  We  got  in.  The  steps  went  up. 
The  coach  drove  off.  The  murmurs  of  mine  hostess, 
not  very  indistinctly  or  ambiguously  pronomiced,  be- 
came after  a  time  inaudible,  —  and  now  my  conscience, 
which  the  whimsical  scene  had  for  a  while  suspended, 
beginning  to  give  some  twitches,  I  waited,  in  the  hope 
that  some  justification  would  be  offered  by  these  serious 
persons  for  the  seeming  injustice  of  their  conduct.  To 
my  great  surprise,  not  a  syllable  was  dropped  on  the 
subject.  They  sat  as  mute  as  at  a  meeting.  At  length 
the  eldest  of  them  broke  silence,  by  inquiring  of  his 
next  neighbor,  "  Hast  thee  heard  how  mdigoes  go  at 
the  India  House  ?  "  —  and  the  question  operated  as  a 
soporific  on  my  moral  feehng  as  far  as  Exeter. 


WITCHES,   AND   OTHER  NIGHT   FEARS. 

We  are  too  hasty  Avhen  we  set  down   our  ancestors 
in  the  gross  for  fools,  for  the  monstrous  inconsistencies 


WITCHES,  AND    OTHER   NIGHT   FEARS.  109 

(as  they  seem  to  lis)  involved  in  their  creed  of  witch- 
craft. In  the  relations  of  this  visible  world  we  find 
them  to  have  been  as  rational  and  shrewd  to  detect  an 
historic  anomaly  as  ourselves.  But  when  once  the 
invisible  world  was  supposed  to  be  opened,  and  the 
lawless  agency  of  bad  spirits  assumed,  what  measures 
of  probability,  of  decency,  of  fitness,  or  proportion  — 
of  that  which  distinguishes  the  likely  from  the  palpable 
absurd  —  could  they  have  to  guide  them  in  the  rejec- 
tion or  admission  of  any  particular  testimony  ?  That 
maidens  pined  away,  wasting  inwardly  as  their  waxen 
images  consumed  before  a  fire  —  that  corn  was  lodged, 
and  cattle  lamed  —  that  whirlwinds  uptore  in  diabolic 
revelry  the  oaks  of  the  forest  —  or  that  spits  and  kettles 
only  danced  a  fearful  innocent  vagary  about  some 
rustic's  kitchen  when  no  wind  was  stirring,  —  were 
all  equally  probable  where  no  law  of  agency  was 
understood.  That  the  prince  of  the  powers  of  dark- 
ness, passing  by  the  flower  and  pomp  of  the  earth, 
should  lay  preposterous  siege  to  the  weak  fantasy  of 
mdigent  eld  —  has  neither  likelihood  nor  unlikelihood 
a  ptiori  to  us,  who  have  no  measure  to  guess  at  his 
policy,  or  standard  to  estimate  what  rate  those  anile 
souls  may  fetch  in  the  devil's  market.  Nor,  when  the 
wicked  are  expressly  symbolized  by  a  goat,  was  it  to  be 
wondered  at  so  much,  that  he  should  come  sometimes 
in  that  body  and  assert  his  metaphor.  That  the  inter- 
course was  opened  at  all  between  both  worlds,  was 
perhaps  the  mistake,  —  but  that  once  assumed,  I  see  no 
reason  for  disbelieving  one  attested  story  of  this  natiu'e 
more  than  another  on  the  score  of  absurdity.  There 
is  no  law  to  judge  of  the  lawless,  or  canon  by  wbich  a 
di'eam  may  be  criticized. 


110  WITCHES,  AND   OTHER  NIGHT   FEARS. 

I  have  sometimes  thought  that  I  could  not  have  ex 
isted  in  the  days  of  received  witchcraft ;  that  I  could 
not  have  slept  in  a  village  where  one  of  those  reputed 
hags  dwelt.  Our  ancestors  were  bolder  or  more  obtuse. 
Amidst  the  universal  belief  that  these  wretches  were 
in  league  with  the  author  of  all  evil,  holding  hell  tribu- 
tary to  their  muttering,  no  simple  Justice  of  the  Peace 
seems  to  have  scrupled  issuing,  or  silly  Headborough 
serving,  a  warrant  upon  them,  —  as  if  they  should  sub- 
poena Satan  !  Prospero  in  his  boat,  with  his  books 
and  wand  about  him,  suffers  himself  to  be  conveyed 
away  at  the  mercy  of  his  enemies  to  an  unknown  isl- 
and. He  might  have  raised  a  storm  or  two,  we  think, 
on  the  passage.  His  acquiescence  is  in  exact  analogy 
to  the  non-resistance  of  witches  to  the  constituted 
powers.  What  stops  the  Fiend  in  Spenser  from  tear- 
ing Guyon  to  pieces,  —  or  who  had  made  it  a  condition 
of  his  prey,  that  Guyon  must  take  assay  of  the  glorious 
bait,  —  we  have  no  guess.  We  do  not  know  the  laws 
of  that  country. 

From  my  childhood  I  was  extremely  inquisitive 
about  witches  and  witch-stories.  My  maid,  and  more 
legendary  aunt,  supplied  me  with  good  store.  But  I 
shall  mention  the  accident  which  directed  my  curiosity 
originally  into  this  channel.  In  my  father's  book- 
closet,  the  "  History  of  the  Bible  "  by  Stackhouse  occu- 
pied a  distinguished  station.  The  pictures  with  which 
it  aboiuids  —  one  of  the  ark,  in  particular,  and  another 
of  Solomon's  temple,  delineated  with  all  the  fidelity  of 
ocular  admeasurement,  as  if  the  artist  had  been  upon 
the  spot  —  attracted  my  childish  attention.  Thei-e  was 
a  picture,  too,  of  the  Witch  raising  up  Samuel,  which 
I  wish  that  I  had  never  seen.      We  shall  come  to  that 


WITCHES,   AND   OTHER   NIGHT   FEABS.  Ill 

hereafter.  Stackhouse  is  in  two  huge  tomes,  —  and 
there  was  a  pleasure  in  removing  folios  of  that  magni- 
tude, which,  with  infinite  straining,  was  as  much  as  I 
could  manage,  from  the  situation  which  they  occupied 
upon  an  upper  shelf.  I  have  not  met  with  the  work 
from  that  time  to  this,  but  I  remember  it  consisted  of 
Old  Testament  stories,  orderly  set  down,  with  the  ib- 
jection  appended  to  each  story,  and  the  solution  of  tho 
objection  regularly  tacked  to  that.  The  objection  was  a 
summary  of  whatever  difficulties  had  been  opposed  to 
the  credibility  of  the  history,  by  the  shrewdness  of  an- 
cient or  modern  infidelity,  drawn  up  with  an  almost 
complimentary  excess  of  candor.  The  solution  was 
brief,  modest,  and  satisfactory.  The  bane  and  antidote 
were  both  before  you.  To  doubts  so  put,  and  so 
quashed,  there  seemed  to  be  an  end  forever.  The 
dragon  lay  dead,  for  the  foot  of  the  veriest  babe  to 
trample  on.  But  —  like  as  was  rather  feared  than 
realized  fi-om  that  slain  monster  in  Spenser  —  fi'om  the 
womb  of  those  crushed  errors  young  dragonets  would 
creep,  exceeding  the  prowess  of  so  tender  a  Saint 
George  as  myself  to  vanquish.  The  habit  of  expect- 
ing objections  to  every  passage,  set  me  upon  starting 
more  objections,  for  the  glory  of  finding  a  solution  of 
my  own  for  them.  I  became  staggered  and  perplexed, 
a  skeptic  in  long-coats.  The  pretty  Bible  stories  which 
I  had  read,  or  heard  read  in  church,  lost  their  purity 
and  sincerity  of  impression,  and  were  turned  into  so 
many  historic  or  chronologic  theses  to  be  defended 
against  whatever  impugners.  I  was  not  to  disbelieve 
them,  but  —  the  next  thing  to  that  —  I  was  to  be  quite 
sure  that  some  one  or  other  would  or  had  disbelieved 
them.     Next  to  making  a  child  an  infidel,  is  the  letting 


112  WITCHES,  AND    OTHER  NIGHT   FEARS. 

him  know  that  there  are  infidels  at  all.  Credulity  is 
the  man's  weakness,  but  the  child's  strength.  O,  how 
ugly  sound  scriptural  doubts  from  the  mouth  of  a  babe 
and  a  suckling !  —  I  should  have  lost  myself  in  these 
mazes,  and  have  pined  away,  I  think,  with  such  unfit 
sustenance  as  these  husks  afibrded,  but  for  a  fortunate 
piece  of  ill-fortune,  which  about  this  time  befell  me. 
Turning  over  the  picture  of  the  ai'k  with  too  much 
haste,  I  unhappily  made  a  breach  in  its  ingenious  fabric, 
- —  di'iving  my  inconsiderate  fingers  right  through  the 
two  larger  quadrupeds,  —  the  elephant,  and  the  camel, 
—  that  stare  (as  well  they  might)  out  of  the  last  two 
windows  next  the  steerage  in  that  unique  piece  of  naval 
architecture.  Stackhouse  was  henceforth  locked  up, 
and  became  an  interdicted  treasure.  With  the  book, 
the  objections  and  solutions  gradually  cleared  out  of  my 
head,  and  have  seldom  returned  since  in  any  force  to 
trouble  me.  But  there  was  one  impression  which  I 
had  imbibed  from  Stackhouse,  which  no  lock  or  bar 
could  shut  out,  and  which  was  destined  to  try  my 
childish  nerves  rather  more  seriously.  That  detest- 
able picture  ! 

I  was  dreadfully  alive  to  nervous  terrors.  The 
night-time,  solitude,  and  the  dark,  were  my  hell.  The 
sufferings  I  endured  in  this  nature  would  justify  the  ex- 
pression. I  never  laid  my  head  on  my  pillow,  I  sup- 
pose, fi'om  the  fourth  to  the  seventh  or  eighth  year  of 
my  life  —  so  far  as  memory  serves  in  things  so  long 
ago  —  without  an  assurance,  which  realized  its  own 
prophecy,  of  seeing  some  frightful  spectre.  Be  old 
Stackhouse  then  acquitted  in  part,  if  I  say,  that  to  his 
picture  of  the  Witch  raising  up  Samuel  —  (O  that  old 
mail  covered  \vith  a  mantle  I  )  — I  owe  —  not  my  mid- 


WITCHES,   AND    OTHER  NIGHT   FEARS.  113 

night  terrors,  the  hell  of  my  infancy — but  the  shape 
and  manner  of  their  visitation.  It  was  he  who  dressed 
up  for  me  a  hag  that  nightly  sate  upon  my  pillow,  —  a 
sure  bedfellow,  when  my  aunt  or  my  maid  was  far  from 
me.  All  day  long,  while  the  book  was  permitted  me, 
I  dreamed  waking  over  his  delineation,  and  at  night 
(if  1  may  use  so  bold  an  expression)  awoke  mto  sleep, 
and  found  the  vision  true.  I  durst  not,  even  in  the 
daylight,  once  enter  the  chamber  where  I  slept,  with- 
out my  face  turned  to  the  window,  aversely  from  the 
bed  where  my  witchridden  pillow  was.  Parents  do 
not  knoAV  what  they  do  when  they  leave  tender  babes 
alone  to  go  to  sleep  in  the  dark.  The  feeling  about  for 
a  friendly  arm  —  the  hoping  for  a  familiar  voice  — 
when  they  wake  screaming  —  and  find  none  to  soothe 
them,  —  what  a  terrible  shaking  it  is  to  their  poor 
nerves  !  The  keeping  them  up  till  midnight,  through 
candlelight  and  the  unwholesome  hours,  as  they  are 
called,  —  would,  I  am  satisfied,  in  a  medical  point  of 
view,  prove  the  better  caution.  That  detestable  pic- 
ture, as  I  have  said,  gave  the  fashion  to  my  dreams,  — 
if  dreams  they  were,  —  for  the  scene  of  them  was  inva- 
riably the  room  in  which  I  lay.  Had  I  never  met  with 
the  picture,  the  fears  would  have  come  self-pictured  in 
some  shape  or  other,  — 

Headless  bear,  black  man,  or  ape,  — 

but,  as  it  was,  my  imaginations  took  that  form.  It  is 
not  book,  or  picture,  or  the  stories  of  foolish  servants 
which  create  these  terrors  in  children.  They  can  at 
most  but  give  them  a  direction.  Dear  little  T.  H., 
who  of  all  cliildren  has  been  brought  up  with  the  most 
scrupulous  exclusion  of  every  taint  of  superstition  — 


1J4  WITCHES,  AND    OTHER  NIGHT   FEARS. 

who  was  never  allowed  to  hear  of  goblin  or  apparition, 
or  scarcely  to  be  told  of  bad  men,  or  to  read  or  hear  of 
any  distressing  story,  —  finds  all  this  world  of  fear,  from 
which  he  has  been  so  rigidly  excluded  ah  extra,  in  his 
own  "  thick-coming  fancies ;  "  and  fi'om  his  little  mid- 
night pillow,  this  nurse-child  of  optimism  will  start  at 
shapes,  unborrowed  of  tradition,  in  sweats  to  which 
the  reveries  of  the  cell-damned  murderer  are  tran- 
quiUity. 

Gorgons,  and  Hydras,  and  Chimeras  du'e  —  stories 
of  Celasno  and  the  Harjiies  —  may  reproduce  them- 
selves in  the  brain  of  superstition,  —  but  they  were 
there  before.  They  are  transcripts,  types,  —  the  arche- 
types are  m  us,  and  eternal.  How  else  should  the 
recital  of  that,  which  we  know  in  a  waking  sense  to  be 
false,  come  to  affect  us  at  all  ?  —  or 

Names,  whose  sense  we  see  not, 
Fray  us  with  things  that  be  not  ? 

Is  it  that  we  naturally  conceive  teiTor  from  such  ob- 
jects, considered  in  their  capacity  of  being  able  to  m- 
flict  upon  us  bodily  injury  ?  O,  least  of  all !  These 
terrors  are  of  older  standing.  They  date  beyond  body, 
—  or,  without  the  body,  they  would  have  been  the 
same.  All  the  cruel,  tormenting,  defined  devils  in 
Dante,  —  tearing,  mangling,  choking,  stifling,  scorch- 
ing demons,  —  are  they  one  half  so  fearful  to  the  spirit 
of  a  man  as  the  simple  idea  of  a  spirit  unembodied 
followinor  him  — 

Like  one  that  on  a  lonesome  road 
Dotli  walk  in  fear  and  dread, 
And  having  once  turn'd  round,  walks  on 
And  turns  no  more  his  head  ; 


WITCHES,   AND    OTHER   NIGHT   FEARS.  115 

Because  he  knows  a  frightful  fiend 
Doth  close  behind  him  tread.* 

That  the  kind  of  fear  here  treated  of  is  purely  spirit- 
ual, —  that  it  is  strong  in  proportion  as  it  is  objectless 
upon  earth,  —  that  it  predominates  in  the  period  of  sin- 
less infancy,  —  are  difficulties,  the  solution  of  which 
might  afford  some  probable  insight  into  our  antemun 
dane  condition,  and  a  peep  at  least  into  the  shadowland 
of  preexistence. 

My  night  fancies  have  long  ceased  to  be  afflictive. 
I  confess  an  occasional  nightmare  ;  but  I  do  not,  as  in 
early  youth,  keep  a  stud  of  them.  Fiendish  faces,  with 
the  extinguished  taper,  will  come  and  look  at  me ;  but 
I  know  them  for  mockeries,  even  while  I  cannot  elude 
their  presence,  and  I  fight  and  grapple  with  them. 
For  the  credit  of  my  imagination,  I  am  almost  ashamed 
to  say  how  tame  and  prosaic  my  dreams  are  grown. 
They  are  never  romantic,  seldom  even  rural.  They 
are  of  architecture  and  of  buildings,  —  cities  abroad, 
which  I  have  never  seen  and  hardly  have  hoped  to 
see.  I  have  traversed,  for  the  seeming  length  of  a 
natural  day,  Rome,  Amsterdam,  Paris,  Lisbon  —  their 
churches,  palaces,  squares,  market-places,  shops,  sub- 
urbs, ruins,  with  an  inexpressible  sense  of  delight  —  a 
map-like  distinctness  of  trace — and  a  daylight  vivid- 
ness of  vision,  that  was  all  but  being  awake.  I  have 
formerly  travelled  among  the  Westmoreland  fells,  — 
my  highest  Alps,  —  but  they  are  objects  too  mighty  for 
the  grasp  of  my  ch-eaming  recognition ;  and  I  have 
again  and  again  awoke  with  ineffectual  struggles  of  the 
inner  eye,  to  make  out  a  shape  in  any  way  whatever, 
of  H?lvellyn.     Methought  I  was  in  that  country,  but 

*  Mr.  Coleridge's  Ancient  Manner 


116  WITCHES,  AND    OTHER  NIGHT   FEARS. 

the  mountains  were  gone.  The  poverty  of  my  dreams 
mortifies  me.  Thei'e  is  Coleridge,  at  his  will  can 
conjure  up  icy  domes,  and  pleasure-houses  for  Kubla 
Khan,  and  Abyssinian  maids,  and  songs  of  Abara,  and 
caverns, 

Where  Alph,  the  sacred  river,  runs, 

to  solace  his  night  solitudes,  —  when  I  cannot  muster  a 
fiddle.  Barry  Cornwall  has  his  tritons  and  his  nereids 
gamboling  before  him  in  nocturnal  visions,  and  pro- 
claiming sons  born  to  Neptune,  —  when  my  stretch  of 
imaginative  activity  can  hardly,  in  the  night  season, 
raise  up  the  ghost  of  a  fishwife.  To  set  my  failures  in 
somewhat  a  mortifying  light,  —  it  was  after  i*eading  the 
noble  Dream  of  this  poet,  that  my  fancy  ran  strong 
upon  these  marine  spectra  ;  and  the  poor  plastic  power, 
such  as  it  is,  within  me  set  to  work,  to  humor  my  folly 
in  a  sort  of  di'eam  that  very  night.  Methought  I  was 
upon  the  ocean  billows  at  some  sea  nuptials,  riding  and 
mounted  high,  with  the  customary  train  sounding  their 
conchs  before  me,  (I  myself,  you  may  be  sure,  the 
leading  god,')  and  jollily  we  went  careering  over  the 
main,  till  just  where  Ino  Leucothea  should  have  greeted 
me  (I  think  it  was  Ino)  with  a  white  embrace,  the  bil- 
lows gradually  subsiding,  fell  fi'om  a  sea-roughness  to  a 
sea-calm,  and  thence  to  a  river  motion,  and  that  river 
('as  happens  in  the  familiarization  of  dreams)  was  no 
other  than  the  gentle  Thames,  which  landed  me  in  the 
wafture  of  a  placid  wave  or  two,  alone,  safe,  and  inglo- 
rious, somewhere  at  the  foot  of  Lambeth  palace. 

The  degree  of  the  soul's  creativeness  in  sleep  might 
furnish  no  whimsical  criterion  of  the  quantum  of  poet- 
ical faculty  resident  in  the  same  soul  waking.  An  old 
gentleman,  a  friend  of  mine,  and  a  humorist,  used  to 


VALENTINE'S   DAY.  117 

tarry  this  notion  so  far,  tliat  when  he  saw  any  stripling 
of  his  acquaintance  ambitious  of  becoming  a  poet,  his 
first  question  would  be,  —  "  Young  man,  what  sort  of 
dreams  have  you  ?  "  I  have  so  much  faith  in  my  old 
friend's  theory,  that  when  I  feel  that  idle  vein  return- 
ing upon  me,  I  presently  subside  into  my  proper  ele- 
ment of  prose,  remembering  those  eluding  nereids,  and 
that  inauspicious  inland  landing. 


VALENTINE'S   DAY. 

Hail  to  thy  returning  festival,  old  Bishop  Valentme  t 
Great  is  thy  name  in  the  rubric,  thou  venerable  Arch- 
flamen  of  Hymen  !  Immortal  Go-between  ;  who  and 
what  manner  of  person  art  thou  ?  Art  thou  but  a  name, 
typifying  the  restless  principle  which  impels  poor  hu- 
mans to  seek  perfection  in  union  ?  or  wert  thou  indeed 
a  mortal  prelate,  with  thy  tippet  and  thy  rochet,  thy 
ajDron  on,  and  decent  lawn  sleeves  ?  Mysterious  per- 
sonage !  like  unto  thee,  assuredly,  there  is  no  other 
mitred  father  in  the  calendar ;  not  Jerome,  nor  Am- 
brose, nor  Cyril ;  nor  the  consigner  of  undipt  infants 
to  eternal  torments,  Austin,  whom  all  mothers  hate ; 
nor  he  who  hated  all  mothers,  Origen  ;  nor  Bishop 
Bull,  nor  Archbishop  Parker,  nor  Whitgift.  Thou 
comest  attended  with  thousands  and  ten  thousands  of 
little  Loves,  and  the  air  is 

Brush'd  with  the  hiss  of  rustling  wings. 

Singhig  Cupids  aie  thy  choristers  and  thy  precentors  ; 


118  VALENTINE'S   DAY. 

and  instead  of  the  crosier,  the  mystical  aiTow  is  borne 
before  thee. 

In  other  words,  this  is  the  day  on  which  those  charm- 
ing httle  missives,  ycleped  Valentines,  cross  and  inter- 
cross each  other  at  every  street  and  turning.  The 
weary  and  all  forespent  twopenny  postman  sinks  be- 
neath a  load  of  delicate  embarrassments,  not  his  own. 
It  is  scarcely  credible  to  what  an  extent  this  ephemeral 
courtship  is  carried  on  in  this  loving  town,  to  the  great 
enrichment  of  porters,  and  detriment  of  knockers  and 
bell-wires.  In  these  little  visual  interpretations,  no 
emblem  is  so  common  as  the  hearty  —  that  little  three- 
cornered  exponent  of  all  our  hopes  and  fears,  —  the 
bestuck  and  bleeding  heart ;  it  is  twisted  and  tortured 
into  more  allegories  and  affectations  than  an  opera-hat. 
What  authority  we  have  in  history  or  mythology  for 
placing  the  head-quarters  and  metropolis  of  God  Cupid 
in  this  anatomical  seat  rather  than  in  any  other,  is  not 
very  clear ;  but  we  have  got  it,  and  it  will  serve  as 
well  as  any  other.  Else  we  might  easily  imagine,  upon 
some  other  system  which  might  have  prevailed  for  any- 
thing which  our  pathology  knows  to  the  contraiy,  a 
lover  addressing  his  mistress,  in  perfect  simplicity  of 
feeling,  "  Madam,  my  liver  and  fortune  are  entirely 
at  your  disposal ; "  or  putting  a  delicate  question, 
"Amanda,  have  you  a  midriff  to  bestow  ?  "  But  cus- 
tom has  settled  these  things,  and  awarded  the  seat  of 
sentiment  to  the  aforesaid  triangle,  while  its  less  fortu- 
nate neighbors  wait  at  animal  and  anatomical  distance. 

Not  many  sounds  in  life,  and  I  include  all  urban  and 
all  iniral  sounds,  exceed  in  interest  a  knock  at  the  door. 
It  "  gives  a  very  echo  to  the  throne  where  Hope  is 
seated."     But  its  issues  seldom  answer  to  this  oracle 


VALENTINE'S  DAY.  119 

within.  It  is  so  seldom  that  just  the  person  we  want 
to  see  comes.  But  of  all  the  clamorous  visitations 
the  welcomest  in  expectation  is  the  sound  that  ushers 
in,  or  seems  to  usher  in,  a  Valentine.  As  the  raven 
himself  was  hoarse  that  announced  the  fatal  entrance 
of  Duncan,  so  the  knock  of  the  postman  on  this 
day  is  light,  airy,  confident,  and  befitting  one  that 
bringeth  good  tidings.  It  is  less  mechanical  than  on 
other  days ;  you  will  say,  "  That  is  not  the  post,  I  am 
sure."  Visions  of  Love,  of  Cupids,  of  Hymens  !  — 
delightful  eternal  commonplaces,  which  "  having  been, 
will  always  be ; "  which  no  schoolboy  nor  schoolman 
can  write  away ;  having  your  iiTeversible  throne  in  the 
fancy  and  affections,  —  what  are  your  transports,  when 
the  happy  maiden,  opening  with  careful  finger,  careful 
not  to  break  the  emblematic  seal,  bursts  upon  the  sight 
of  some  well-designed  allegory,  some  type,  some  youth- 
ful fancy,  not  without  verses  — 

Lovers  all, 
A  madrigal, 

or  some  such  device,  not  over  abundant  in  sense,— 
young  Love  disclaims  it,  —  and  not  quite  silly,  —  some- 
thing between  wind  and  water,  a  chorus  where  the 
sheep  might  almost  join  the  shepherd,  as  they  did,  or 
as  I  apprehend  they  did,  in  Arcadia. 

All  Valentines  are  not  foolish ;  and  I  sliall  not  easily 
forget  thine,  my  kind  friend  (if  I  may  have  leave  to 
call  you  so)  E.  B.  —  E.  B.  lived  opposite  a  young 
maiden  Avhom  he  had  often  seen,  unseen,  from  his  par- 
lor window  in  C — e  Street.  She  was  all  joyousness 
and  mnocence,  and  just  of  an  age  to  enjoy  receiving 
a  Valentine,  and  just  of  a  temper  to  bear  the  disap- 
pointment of  missing  one  with  good-humor.     E.  B.  i» 


120  VALENTINE'S   DAY. 

an  artist  of  no  common  powers ;  in  the  fancy  parts  of 
designing,  perhaps  inferior  to  none ;  his  name  is  known 
at  the  bottom  of  many  a  well-executed  vignette  in  the 
way  of  his  profession,  but  no  further ;  for  E.  B.  is 
modest,  and  the  world  meets  nobody  half-way.  E.  B. 
meditated  how  he  could  repay  this  young  maiden  for 
many  a  favor  which  she  had  done  him  unknown ;  for 
when  a  kindly  face  greets  us,  though  but  passing  by, 
and  never  knows  us  again,  nor  we  it,  we  should  feel  it 
as  an  obligation ;  and  E.  B.  did.  This  good  artist  set 
himself  at  work  to  please  the  damsel.  It  was  just 
before  Valentine's  day  three  years  since.  He  wrought, 
unseen  and  unsuspected,  a  wondrous  work.  We  need 
not  say  it  was  on  the  finest  gilt  paper  with  borders,  — 
full,  not  of  common  hearts  and  heartless  allegory,  but 
all  the  prettiest  stories  of  love  from  Ovid,  and  older 
poets  than  Ovid  (for  E.  B.  is  a  scholar).  There  was 
Pyramus  and  Thisbe,  and  be  sure  Dido  was  not  forgot, 
nor  Hero  and  Leander,  and  swans  more  than  sang  in 
Cayster,  with  mottoes  and  fanciful  devices,  such  as  be- 
seemed, —  a  work,  in  short,  of  magic.  Iris  dipt  the 
woof.  This  on  Valentine's  eve  he  commended  to 
the  all-swallowing  indiscriminate  orifice — (O  ignoble 
trust !  )  —  of  the  common  post ;  but  the  humble .  me- 
dium did  its  duty,  and  from  his  watchful  stand,  the 
next  morning  he  saw  the  cheerful  messenger  knock, 
and  by  and  by  the  precious  charge  delivered.  He  saw, 
unseen,  the  happy  girl  unfold  the  Valentine,  dance 
about,  clap  her  hands,  as  one  after  one  the  pretty  em- 
blems unfolded  themselves.  She  danced  about,  not 
with  light  love,  or  foolish  expectations,  for  she  had  no 
lover ;  or,  if  she  had,  none  she  knew  that  could  have 
ci'eated  those  brio-ht  imaws  which  delirrhted  her.    It  was 


MY   RELATIONS.  121 

more  like  some  fairy  present ;  a  Godsend,  as  our  famil- 
iarly pious  ancestors  termed  a  benefit  received  where 
the  benefactor  was  unknown.  It  would  do  her  no 
harm.  It  would  do  her  good  forever  after.  It  is  good 
to  love  the  unknown.  I  only  give  this  as  a  specimen 
of  E.  B.  and  his  modest  way  of  doing  a  concealed 
kindness. 

Good  morrow  to  my  Valentine,  sings  poor  Ophelia ; 
and  no  better  wish,  but  with  better  auspices,  we  wish 
to  all  faitliful  lovers,  who  are  not  too  wise  to  despise 
old  legends,  but  are  content  to  rank  themselves  humble 
diocesans  of  old  Bishop  Valentine  and  his  true  church. 


MY  RELATIONS. 


I  AM  arrived  at  that  point  of  life  at  which  a  man 
may  accoimt  it  a  blessing,  as  it  is  a  singularity,  if  he 
have  either  of  his  parents  surviving.  I  have  not  that 
felicity  —  and  sometimes  think  feelingly  of  a  passage  in 
Browne's  Christian  Morals,  whei'e  he  speaks  of  a  man 
that  hath  lived  sixty  or  seventy  years  in  the  world. 
"  In  such  a  compass  of  time,"  he  says,  '*  a  man  may 
have  a  close  apprehension  what  it  is  to  be  forgotten, 
when  he  hath  lived  to  find  none  who  could  remember 
his  father,  or  scarcely  the  friends  of  his  youth,  and  may 
sensibly  see  with  what  a  face  in  no  long  time  OBimoN 
will  look  upon  himself." 

I  had  an  avmt,  a  dear  and  good  one.  She  was  one 
whom  single  blessedness  had  soured  to  the  world.     She 


122  MY   RELATIONS. 

often  used  to  say,  that  I  was  the  only  thing  in  it  which 
she  loved  ;  and,  when  she  thought  I  was  quitting  it, 
she  grieved  over  me  with  mother's  tears.  A  partiality 
quite  so  exclusive  my  reason  cannot  altogether  approve. 
She  was  from  morning  till  night  poring  over  good 
books  and  devotional  exercises.  Her  favorite  volumes 
were,  Thomas  a  Kempis,  in  Stanhope's  translation ; 
and  a  Roman  Catholic  Prayer-Book,  with  the  matins 
and  complines  regularly  set  down,  —  terms  which  I  was 
at  that  time  too  young  to  understand.  She  persisted 
in  reading  them,  although  admonished  daily  concern- 
ing their  Papistical  tendency ;  and  went  to  church 
every  Sabbath  as  a  good  Protestant  should  do.  These 
were  the  only  books  she  studied ;  though,  I  think,  at 
one  period  of  her  life,  she  told  me  she  had  read  with 
great  satisfaction  the  Adventures  of  an  Unfortunate 
Young  Nobleman.  Finding  the  door  of  the  chapel  in 
Essex  Street  open  one  day,  —  it  was  in  the  infancy  of 
that  heresy,  —  she  went  in,  liked  the  sermon  and  the 
manner  of  worship,  and  fi-equented  it  at  intervals  for 
some  time  after.  She  came  not  for  doctrinal  points, 
and  never  missed  them.  With  some  little  asperities  in 
her  constitution,  which  I  have  above  hinted  at,  she  was 
a  steadfast,  friendly  being,  and  a  fine  old  Christian. 
She  was  a  woman  of  strong  sense,  and  a  shrewd  mind 
—  extraordinary  at  a  repartee;  one  of  the  few  occa- 
sions of  her  breakino;  silence  —  else  she  did  not  much 
value  wit.  The  only  secular  employment  I  remember 
to  have  seen  her  engaged  in,  was,  the  splitting  of 
French  beans,  and  dropping  them  into  a  china  basin 
of  fair  water.  The  odor  of  those  tender  vegetables  to 
this  day  comes  back  upon  my  sense,  redolent  of  sooth- 
mg  recollections.  Certainly  it  is  the  most  delicate  of 
culinary  operations. 


MY  RELATIONS.  123 

Male  aunts,  as  somebody  calls  them,  I  had  none  — 
to  remember.  By  the  uncle's  side  I  may  be  said  to 
have  been  born  an  orphan.  Brother,  or  sister,  I  never 
had  any  —  to  know  them.  A  sister,  I  think,  that 
should  have  been  Elizabeth,  died  in  both  our  infancies. 
What  a  comfort,  or  what  a  care,  may  I  not  have 
missed  in  her !  But  I  have  cousins  sprinkled  about 
in  Hertfordshire,  —  besides  two,  with  whom  I  have  been 
all  my  life  in  habits  of  the  closest  intimacy,  and  whom 
I  may  term  cousins  par  excellence.  These  are  James 
and  Bridget  Elia.  They  are  older  than  myself  by 
twelve,  and  ten  years ;  and  neither  of  them  seems  dis- 
posed, m  matters  of  advice  and  guidance,  to  waive  any 
of  the  prerogatives  which  primogeniture  confers.  May 
they  continue  still  in  the  same  mind  ;  and  when  they 
shall  be  seventy-five,  and  seventy-three  years  old 
(I  cannot  spare  them  sooner),  persist  in  treating  me 
in  my  grand  climacteric  precisely  as  a  stripling,  or 
younger  brother! 

James  is  an  inexplicable  cousin.  Nature  hath  her 
unities,  which  not  every  critic  can  penetrate  ;  or,  if 
we  feel,  we  cannot  explain  them.  The  pen  of  Yorick, 
and  of  none  since  his,  could  have  drawn  J.  E.  entire,  — 
those  fine  Shandean  lights  and  shades,  which  make  up 
his  story.  I  must  limp  after  in  my  poor  antithetical 
manner,  as  the  fates  have  given  me  grace  and  talent. 
J.  E.  then  —  to  the  eye  of  a  common  observer  at  least 
—  seemeth  made  up  of  contradictory  principles.  The 
genuine  child  of  impulse,  the  frigid  philosoj)her  of 
prudence  —  the  phlegm  of  my  cousin's  doctrine  is  in- 
variably at  war  with  his  temperament,  which  is  high 
sanguine.  With  always  some  fire-new  project  in  his 
brain,  J.  E.  is  the  systematic  opponent  of  innovatioD* 


124  MY  RELATIONS. 

and  crier  down  of  everything  that  has  not  stood  the 
test  of  age  and  experiment.  Witli  a  hundred  fine 
notions  chasing  one  another  hourly  in  his  fancy,  he  is 
startled  at  the  least  approach  to  the  romantic  in  others  : 
and,  determined  by  his  own  sense  in  everything,  com- 
mends yoii  to  the  guidance  of  common  sense  on  all 
occasions.  With  a  touch  of  the  eccentric  in  all  which 
he  does,  or  says,  he  is  only  anxious  that  you  should  not 
commit  yourself  by  doing  anything  absurd  or  singular. 
On  my  once  letting  slip  at  table  that  I  was  not  fond 
of  a  certain  popular  dish,  he  begged  me  at  any  rate  not 
to  %ay  so  —  for  the  world  would  think  me  mad.  He 
disguises  a  passionate  fondness  for  works  of  high  art 
(whereof  he  hath  amassed  a  choice  collection),  under 
the  pretext  of  buying  only  to  sell  again  —  that  his 
enthusiasm  may  give  no  encouragement  to  yours.  Yet, 
if  it  were  so,  why  does  that  piece  of  tender,  pastoral 
Domenichino  hang  still  by  his  wall  ?  —  is  the  ball  of 
his  sight  much  more  dear  to  him  ?  —  or  what  picture- 
dealer  can  talk  like  him  ? 

Whereas  mankind  in  general  are  observed  to  wai'p 
their  speculative  conclusions  to  the  bent  of  their  indi- 
vidual humors,  liu  theories  are  sure  to  be  in  diametrical 
opposition  to  his  constitution.  He  is  courageous  as 
Charles  of  Sweden,  upon  instinct ;  chary  of  his  person 
upon  principle,  as  a  travelling  Quaker.  He  has  been 
preaching  up  to  me,  all  my  life,  the  doctrine  of  bowing 
to  the  great  —  the  necessity  of  forms,  and  manner,  to  a 
man's  getting  on  in  the  world.  He  himself  never  aims 
at  either,  that  I  can  discover,  —  and  has  a  spirit,  that 
would  stand  upright  in  the  presence  of  the  Cham  of 
Tartary.  It  is  pleasant  to  hear  him  discourse  of  pa- 
tience —  extolling  it  as  the  truest  wisdom,  —  and  to  see 


MY  RELATIONS.  125 

him  during  the  last  seven  minutes  that  his  dinner  is 
getting  ready.  Nature  never 'ran  up  in  her  haste  a 
more  restless  piece  of  workmanship  than  when  she 
moulded  this  impetuous  cousin, — and  Art  never  turned 
out  a  more  elaborate  orator  than  he  can  display  himself 
to  be,  upon  this  favorite  topic  of  the  advantages  of  quiet 
and  contentedness  in  the  state,  whatever  it  be,  that  we 
are  placed  in.  He  is  triumphant  on  this  theme,  when 
he  has  you  safe  in  one  of  those  short  stages  that  ply  for 
the  western  road,  in  a  very  obstructing  manner,  at  thg 
foot  of  John  Murray's  street,  —  where  you  get  in  when 
it  is  empty,  and  are  expected  to  wait  till  the  vehick 
hath  completed  her  just  freight,  —  a  trying  three  quar- 
ters of  an  hour  to  some  people.  He  wonders  at  youi 
^dgetiness,  —  "  where  could  we  be  better  than  we  are, 
thus  sitting,  thus  consulting?  "  —  "  prefers,  for  his  part, 
a  state  of  rest  to  locomotion," — with  an  eye  all  the 
while  upon  the  coachman,  —  till  at  length,  waxing  out 
of  all  patience,  at  your  want  of  it,  he  breaks  out  into  a 
pathetic  remonstrance  at  the  fellow  for  detaining  us  so 
long  over  the  time  which  he  had  professed,  and  declares 
peremptorily,  that  "  the  gentleman  in  the  coach  is  de- 
termined to  get  out,  if  he  does  not  drive  on  that  in- 
stant." 

Very  quick  at  inventing  an  argument,  or  detecting 
a  sophistry,  he  is  incapable  of  attending  gou  in  any 
chain  of  arguing.  Indeed,  he  makes  wild  work  with 
logic  ;  and  seems  to  jump  at  most  admirable  conclu- 
sions by  some  process,  not  at  all  akin  to  it.  Conso- 
nantly enough  to  this,  he  hath  been  heard  to  deny,  upon 
certain  occasions,  that  there  exists  such  a  faculty  at  all 
in  man  as  reason  ;  and  wondereth  how  man  came  first 
to  have  a  conceit  of  it,  —  enforcing  his  negation  with 


126  MY    RELATIONS. 

all  the  might  of  reasoning  he  is  master  of.  He  has 
some  speculative  notions  against  laughter,  and  will 
maintain  that  laughing  is  not  natural  to  Mm,  —  when 
peradventure  the  next  moment  his  lungs  shall  crow  like 
Chanticleer.  He  says  some  of  the  best  things  in  the 
world — and  declareth  that  wit  is  his  aversion.  It  was 
he  who  said,  upon  seeing  the  Eton  boys  at  play  in  their 
grounds,  —  Wliat  a  ]:iity  to  think,  that  these  fine  ingenuous 
lads  in  a  few  years  will  all  be  changed  into  frivolous 
Members  of  Parliament ! 

His  youth  was  fiery,  glowing,  tempestuous,  —  and  in 
age  he  discovereth  no  symptom  of  cooling.  This  is 
that  which  I  admire  in  him.  I  hate  people  who  meet 
Time  half-way.  I  am  for  no  compromise  with  that 
inevitable  spoiler.  While  he  lives,  J.  E.  will  take  his 
swing.  It  does  me  good,  as  I  walk  towards  the  street 
of  my  daily  avocation,  on  some  fine  May  morning,  to 
meet  him  marching  in  a  quite  opposite  direction,  with 
a  jolly  handsome  presence,  and  shining  sanguine  face 
that  indicates  some  purchase  in  his  eye  —  a  Claude  — 
or  a  Hobbima,  —  for  much  of  his  enviable  leisure  is 
consumed  at  Christie's  and  Philli[)s's  —  or  where  not, 
to  pick  up  pictures,  and  such  gauds.  On  these  occa- 
sions he  mostly  stoppeth  me,  to  read  a  short  lecture 
on  the  advantage  a  person  like  me  possesses  above 
himself,  in  having  his  time  occupied  with  business 
which  he  must  do,  —  assureth  me  that  he  often  feels  it 
hang  heavy  on  his  hands  —  wishes  he  had  fewer  holi- 
days —  and  goes  off —  Westward  Ho  !  —  chanting  a 
tune,  to  Pall  Mall,  —  perfectly  convinced  that  he  has 
convinced  me,  —  while  I  proceed  in  my  opposite  du'ec- 
tion,  tuneless. 

It  is  pleasant  again  to  see  this  Professor  of  IndifFer- 


MY   RELATIONS.  127 

ence  doing  the  honors  of  his  new  purchase,  when  he 
has  fairly  housed  it.  You  must  view  it  in  eveiy  light, 
till  he  has  found  the  best  —  placing  it  at  this  distance, 
and  at  that,  but  always  suiting  the  focus  of  your  sight 
to  his  own.  You  must  spy  at  it  through  your  fingers, 
to  catch  the  aerial  perspective,  —  though  you  assure 
him  that  to  you  the  landscape  shows  much  more  agree- 
able without  that  artifice.  Woe  be  to  the  luckless 
wight,  who  does  not  only  not  respond  to  his  rapture, 
but  who  should  drop  an  unseasonable  intimation  of 
preferring  one  of  his  anterior  bargains  to  the  present  1 
—  The  last  is  always  his  best  hit  —  his  "  Cynthia  of 
the  minute."  —  Alas !  how  many  a  mild  Madonna 
have  I  known  to  come  in  —  a  Raphael !  —  keep  its  as- 
cendancy for  a  few  brief  moons,  —  then,  after  certain 
intermedial  degradations,  from  the  front  drawing-room 
to  the  back  gallery,  thence  to  the  dark  parlor,  — 
adopted  in  turn  by  each  of  the  Carracci,  under  succes- 
sive lowering  ascriptions  of  filiation,  mildly  breaking  its 
fall,  —  consigned  to  the  oblivious  lumber-room,  go  out 
at  last  a  Lucca  Giordano,  or  plain  Carlo  Maratti !  — 
which  things  when  I  beheld  —  musing  upon  the  chances 
and  mutabilities  of  fate  below,  hath  made  me  to  reflect 
upon  the  altered  condition  of  great  personages,  or  that 
woful  Queen  of  Richard  the  Second  — 

set  forth  in  pomp, 
She  came  adorned  hither  hke  sweet  May. 
Sent  back  like  Hallowmas  or  shortest  day. 

With  great  love  for  you^  J.  E.  hath  but  a  limited 
sympathy  with  what  you  feel  or  do.  He  lives  in  a 
world  of  his  own,  and  makes  slender  guesses  at  what 
pjisses  in  your  mind.     He  never  pierces  the  marrow  of 


128  MY   RELATIONS. 

your  liabits.  He  will  tell  an  old  established  play-goer, 
that  Mr.  Such-a-one,  of  So-and-so  (naming  one  of  the 
theatres,)  is  a  very  lively  comedian  —  as  a  piece  of 
news !  He  advertised  me  but  the  other  day  of  some 
pleasant  green  lanes  which  he  had  found  out  for  me, 
hnoiving  me  to  he  a  great  walker^  in  my  own  immediate 
vicinity  —  who  have  haunted  the  identical  spot  any 
time  these  twenty  years  !  He  has  not  much  respect 
for  that  class  of  feelings  which  goes  by  the  name  of 
sentimental.  He  applies  the  definition  of  real  evil  to 
bodily  sufferings  exclusively  —  and  rejecteth  all  others 
as  imaginary.  He  is  affected  by  the  sight,  or  the  bare 
supposition,  of  a  creature  in  pain,  to  a  degree  which  I 
have  never  witnessed  out  of  womankind.  A  consti- 
tutional acuteness  to  this  class  of  sufferings  may  in  part 
account  for  this.  The  animal  tribe  in  particular  he 
taketh  under  his  especial  protection.  A  broken-winded 
or  spur-galled  horse  is  sure  to  find  an  advocate  in  him. 
An  overloaded  ass  is  his  client  forever.  He  is  the 
apostle  to  the  brute  kind  —  the  never-failing  friend  of 
those  who  have  none  to  care  for  them.  The  contem- 
plation of  a  lobster  boiled,  or  eels  skinned  alive^  will 
wring  him  so,  that  "  all  for  pity  he  could  die."  It 
will  take  the  savor  from  his  palate,  and  the  rest  from 
his  pillow  for  days  and  nights.  With  the  intense  feel- 
ing of  Thomas  Clarkson,  he  wanted  only  the  steadiness 
of  pursuit,  and  unity  of  purpose,  of  that  "  true  yoke- 
fellow with  Time,"  to  have  effected  as  much  for  the 
Animal.,  as  he  hath  done  for  the  Negro  Creation.  But 
my  uncontrollable  cousin  is  but  imperfectly  fonned  for 
purposes  which  demand  cooperation.  He  cannot  wait. 
His  amelioration  plans  must  be  ripened  in  a  day.  For 
this  reason  he  has  cut  but  an  cauivocal  fioiu'e  in  be- 


MACKERY  END,  IN   HERTFORDSHIRE.  129 

nevolent  societies,  and  combinations  for  the  alleviation 
of  human  sufferings.  His  zeal  constantly  malfes  him 
to  outmn,  and  put  out,  his  coadjutors.  He  thinks  of 
relieving,  —  while  they  think  of  debating.  He  was 
blackballed  out  of  a  society  for  the  Relief  of  .  .  . 
,  because  the  fervor  of  his  humanity  toiled 
beyond  the  formal  apprehension,  and  creeping  pro- 
cesses of  his  associates.  I  shall  always  consider  this 
distinction  as  a  patent  of  nobility  in  the  Elia  family ! 

Do  I  mention  these  seeming  inconsistencies  to  smile 
at,  or  upbraid  my  unique  cousin  ?  Marry,  heaven, 
and  all  good  manners,  and  the  understanding  that 
should  be  between  kinsfolk,  forbid !  With  all  the 
strangenesses  of  this  strangest  of  the  Elias  —  I  would 
not  have  him  in  one  jot  or  tittle  other  than  he  is ; 
neither  would  I  barter  or  exchange  my  wild  kinsman 
for  the  most  exact,  regular,  and  every  way  consistent 
kinsman  breathing. 

In  my  next,  reader,  I  may  perhaps  give  you  some 
account  of  my  cousin  Bridget — if  you  are  not  already 
surfeited  with  cousins  —  and  take  you  by  the  hand,  if 
you  are  willing  to  go  with  us,  on  an  excursion  which 
we  made  a  summer  or  two  since,  in  search  of  more 
cousins^  — 

Through  the  green  plains  of  pleasant  Hertfordshire. 


MACKERY   END,   IN   HERTFORDSHIRE. 

Bridget  Elia  has  been  my  housekeeper  for  many 
a  long  year.     I  have  obligations  to  Bridget,  extending 

VOL.    III.  9 


130  MACKERY  END,  m  HERTFORDSHIRE. 

beyond  the  period  of  memory.  We  house  together, 
old  bachelor  and  maid,  in  a  sort  of  double  singleness ; 
with  such  tolerable  comfort,  upon  the  whole,  that  I,  for 
one,  find  in  myself  no  sort  of  disposition  to  go  out 
upon  the  mountains,  with  the  rash  king's  offspring,  to 
bewail  my  celibacy.  We  agree  pretty  well  in  our 
tastes  and  habits  —  yet  so,  as  "  with  a  difference." 
We  are  generally  in  harmony,  with  occasional  bicker- 
iuiis  —  as  it  should  be  among  near  relations.  Our 
sympathies  are  rather  understood,  than  expressed  ;  and 
once,  upon  my  dissembling  a  tone  in  my  voice  more 
kind  than  ordinary,  my  cousin  burst  into  tears,  and 
complained  that  I  was  altered.  We  are  both  great 
readers  in  different  directions.  While  I  am  hanging 
over  (for  the  thousandth  time)  some  passage  in  old 
Burton,  or  one  of  his  strange  contemporaries,  she  is 
abstracted  in  some  modern  tale,  or  adventure,  whereof 
our  common  reading-table  is  daily  fed  with  assiduously 
fresh  supplies.  Narrative  teases  me.  I  have  little 
concern  in  the  progress  of  events.  She  must  have  a 
story  —  well,  ill,  or  indifferently  told  —  so  there  be  life 
stirring  in  it,  and  plenty  of  good  or  evil  accidents. 
The  fluctuations  of  fortune  in  fiction  —  and  almost  in 
real  life  —  have  ceased  to  interest,  or  operate  but  dully 
upon  me.  Out-of-the-way  humors  and  opinions  — 
heads  with  some  diverting  twist  in  them  —  the  oddities 
of  authorship  please  me  most.  My  cousin  has  a  native 
disrelish  of  anything  that  sounds  odd  or  bizarre.  Noth- 
ing goes  down  with  her  that  is  quaint,  irregular,  or  out 
of  the  road  of  common  sympathy.  She  "  holds  Nature 
more  clever."  I  can  pardon  her  blindness  to  the  beau- 
tiful obliquities  of  the  Religio  Medici ;  but  she  must 
apologize  to  me  for  certain  disrespe^*iil  insinuations, 


MACKERY  END,  IN  HERTFORDSHIRE.  131 

which  she  has  been  pleased  to  throw  out  latterly,  touch- 
ing the  intellectuals  of  a  dear  favorite  of  mine,  of  the 
last  century  but  one,  —  the  thrice  noble,  chaste,  and 
virtuous,  —  but  again  someAvhat  fantastical,  and  origi- 
nal-brained, generous  Margaret  Newcastle. 

It  has  been  the  lot  of  my  cousin,  oftener  perhaps 
than  I  could  have  wished,  to  have  had  for  her  associates 
and  mine,  freethinkers,  —  leaders,  and  disciples,  of 
novel  philosophies  and  systems ;  but  she  neither  wran- 
gles with,  nor  accepts  their  opinions.  That  which  was 
good  and  venerable  to  her,  when  a  child,  retains  its 
authority  over  her  mind  still.  She  never  juggles  or 
plays  tricks  with  her  understanding. 

We  are  both  of  us  inclined  to  be  a  little  too  posi- 
tive ;  and  I  have  observed  the  result  of  our  disputes  to 
be  almost  uniformly  this,  —  that  in  matters  of  fact, 
dates,  and  circumstances,  it  turns  out,  that  I  was  in  the 
right,  and  my  cousin  in  the  wrong.  But  where  we 
nave  differed  upon  moral  points ;  upon  something 
oroper  to  be  done,  or  let  alone ;  whatever  heat  of  op- 
position, or  steadiness  of  conviction,  I  set  out  with,  I 
am  sure  always,  in  the  long-run,  to  be  brought  over  to 
her  way  of  thinking. 

I  must  touch  vipon  the  foibles  of  my  kinswoman 
with  a  gentle  hand,  for  Bridget  does  not  like  to  be  told 
of  her  faults.  She  hath  an  awkward  trick  (to  say  no 
worse  of  it)  of  reading  in  company  ;  at  which  times 
she  will  answer  yes  or  no  to  a  question,  without  fully 
understanding  its  purport,  —  which  is  provoking,  and 
derogatory  in  the  highest  degree  to  the  dignity  of  the 
putter  of  the  said  question.  Her  presence  of  mind  is 
equal  to  the  most  pressing  trials  of  life,  but  will  some- 
times desert  her  upon  trifling  occasions.     When  the 


132  MACKERY   END,  IN   HERTFORDSHIRE. 

pui'pose  requires  it,  and  is  a  thing  of  moment,  she  can 
speak  to  it  greatly ;  but  in  matters  which  are  not  stuff 
of  the  conscience,  she  hath  been  known  sometimes  to 
let  shp  a  word  less  seasonably. 

Her  education  in  youth  was  not  much  attended  to ; 
and  she  happily  missed  all  that  train  of  female  garni- 
ture, which  passeth  by  the  name  of  accomplishments. 
She  was  tumbled  early,  by  accident  or  design,  into  a 
spacious  closet  of  good  old  English  reading,  without 
much  selection  or  prohibition,  and  browsed  at  will  upon 
that  fair  and  wholesome  pasturage.  Had  I  twenty 
girls,  they  should  be  brought  up  exactly  in  this  fashion. 
I  know  not  whether  their  chance  in  wedlock  might  not 
be  diminished  by  it ;  but  I  can  answer  for  it,  that  it 
makes  (if  the  Avorst  come  to  the  worst)  most  incompar* 
able  old  maids. 

In  a  season  of  distress,  she  is  the  truest  comforter; 
but  in  the  teasing  accidents,  and  minor  perplexities, 
which  do  not  call  out  the  will  to  meet  them,  she  some- 
times maketh  matters  worse  by  an  excess  of  participa- 
tion. If  she  does  not  always  divide  your  trouble,  upon 
the  pleasanter  occasions  of  life  she  is  sure  always  to 
treble  your  satisfaction.  She  is  excellent  to  be  at  a 
play  with,  or  upon  a  visit ;  but  best,  when  she  goes  a 
journey  with  you. 

We  made  an  excursion  together  a  few  summers 
since,  into  Hertfordshire,  to  beat  up  the  quarters  of 
some  of  our  less-known  relations  in  that  fine  com 
country. 

The  oldest  thing  I  remember  is  Mackery  End  ;  or 
Mackarel  End,  as  it  is  spelt,  perhaps  more  properly,  in 
some  old  maps  of  Hertfordshire ;  a  farm-house,  —  de- 
lightfully situated  within  a  gentle  walk  from  Wheat- 


MACKERY  END,   IN   HERTFORDSHIRE.  133 

hampstead.  I  can  just  remember  having  been  there, 
on  a  visit  to  a  great-aunt,  when  I  was  a  child,  under 
the  care  of  Bridget ;  who,  as  I  have  said,  is  okler  than 
myself  by  some  ten  years.  I  wish  that  I  could  throw 
into  a  heap  the  remainder  of  our  joint  existences  ; 
that  we  might  share  them  in  equal  division.  But  that 
IS  impossible.  The  house  was  at  that  time  in  the  occu- 
pation of  a  substantial  yeoman,  who  had  married  my 
grandmother's  sister.  His  name  was  Gladman.  My 
grandmother  was  a  Bruton,  married  to  a  Field.  The 
Gladmans  and  the  Brutons  are  still  flourishing;  in  that 
part  of  the  country,  but  the  Fields  are  almost  extinct. 
More  than  forty  years  had  elapsed  since  the  visit  I 
speak  of;  and,  for  the  greater  portion  of  that  period, 
we  had  lost  sight  of  the  other  two  branches  also.  Who 
or  what  sort  of  persons  inherited  Mackery  End  —  kin- 
dred or  strange  folk  —  we  were  afraid  almost  to  conjec- 
ture, but  determined  some  day  to  explore. 

By  somewhat  a  circuitous  route,  taking  the  noble 
park  at  Luton  in  our  way  from  Saint  Albans,  we  ar- 
rived at  the  spot  of  our  anxious  curiosity  about  noon. 
The  sight  of  the  old  farm-house,  though  every  trace  of 
it  was  effaced  from  my  recollection,  affected  me  with  a 
pleasure  which  I  had  not  experienced  for  many  a  year. 
For  though  /  had  forgotten  it,  we  had  never  forgotten 
being  there  together,  and  we  had  been  talking  about 
Mackery  End  all  our  lives,  till  memory  on  my  part  be- 
came mocked  with  a  phantom  of  itself,  and  I  thought 
I  knew  the  aspect  of  a  place,  which,  when  present,  O 
how  unlike  it  was  to  that  which  I  had  conjured  up  so 
many  times  instead  of  it ! 

Still  the  air  breathed  balmily  about  it ;  the  season 
was  in  the  "  heart  of  Jun3,"  and  I  could  say  with  the 
poet,  — 


134  MACKERY   END,  IN  HERTFORDSHIRE. 

But  thou,  that  didst  appear  so  fair 

To  fond  imagination. 
Dost  rival  iu  the  light  of  day 

Her  delicate  creation! 


Bridget's  was  more  a  waking  bliss  than  mine,  for 
she  easily  remembered  her  old  acquaintance  again,  — 
some  altered  features,  of  course,  a  little  grudged  at. 
At  first,  indeed,  she  was  ready  to  disbelieve  for  joy  ; 
but  the  scene  soon  reconfirmed  itself  in  her  affections, 
—  and  she  traversed  every  outpost  of  the  old  mansion, 
to  the  wood-house,  the  orchard,  the  place  where  the 
pigeon-house  had  stood  (house  and  birds  were  alike 
flown)  —  with  a  breathless  impatience  of  recognition, 
which  was  more  pardonable  perhaps  than  decorous  at 
the  age  of  fifty  odd.  But  Bridget  in  some  things  is 
behind  her  years. 

The  only  thing  left  was  to  get  into  the  house,  — :  and 
that  was  a  difficulty  which  to  me  singly  would  have 
been  insurmountable  ;  for  I  am  terribly  shy  in  making 
myself  known  to  strangers  and  out-of-date  kinsfolk. 
Love,  stronger  than  scruple,  winged  my  cousin  in  with- 
out me ;  but  she  soon  returned  with  a  creature  that 
might  have  sat  to  a  sculptor  for  the  image  of  Welcome. 
It  was  the  youngest  of  the  Gladmans  ;  who,  by  mar- 
riage with  a  Bruton,  had  become  mistress  of  the  old 
mansion.  A  comely  brood  are  the  Brutons.  Six  of 
them,  females,  were  noted  as  the  handsomest  young 
women  in  the  county.  But  this  adopted  Bruton,  in 
my  mind,  was  better  than  they  all  —  more  comely. 
She  was  born  too  late  to  have  remembered  me.  She 
just  recollected  in  early  life  to  have  had  her  cousin 
Bridget  once  pointed  out  to  her,  climbing  a  stile.  But 
the  name  of  kindred,  and  of  cousinship,  was  enough. 


MACKERY   END,  IN  HERTFORDSHIRE.  135 

Those  slender  ties,  that  prove  slight  as  gossamer  in  the 
rending  atmosphere  of  a  metropolis,  bind  faster,  as  we 
found  it,  in  hearty,  homely,  loving  Hertfordshire.  In 
five  minutes  we  Avere  as  thoroughly  acquainted  as  if  we 
had  been  born  and  bred  up  together ;  were  familiar, 
even  to  the  calling  each  other  by  our  Christian  names. 
So  Christians  should  call  one  another.  To  have  seen 
Bridget,  and  her  —  it  was  like  the  meeting  of  the  two 
scriptural  cousins  !  There  was  a  grace  and  dignity,  an 
amplitude  of  form  and  stature,  answering  to  her  mind, 
in  this  farmer's  wife,  which  would  have  shined  in  a 
palace  —  or  so  we  thought  it.  We  were  made  wel- 
come by  husband  and  wife  equally  —  we,  and  our 
friend  that  was  with  us.  I  had  almost  forgotten  him, 
—  but  B.  F.  will  not  so  soon  forget  that  meeting,  if 
perad venture  he  shall  read  this  on  the  far  distant  shores 
where  the  kangaroo  haunts.  The  fatted  calf  was  made 
ready,  or  rather  was  already  so,  as  if  in  anticipation  of 
our  coming ;  and,  after  an  appropriate  glass  of  native 
wine,  never  let  me  forget  with  what  honest  pride  this 
hospitable  cousin  made  us  proceed  to  Wheathampstead, 
to  introduce  us  (as  some  new-found  rarity)  to  her 
mother  and  sister  Gladmans,  who  did  indeed  know 
something  more  of  us,  at  a  time  when  she  almost  knew 
nothing.  With  what  corresponding  kindness  we  were 
received  by  them  also,  —  how  Bridget's  memory,  ex- 
alted by  the  occasion,  warmed  into  a  thousand  half- 
obliterated  recollections  of  things  and  persons,  to  my 
litter  astonishment,  and  her  own,  —  and  to  the  astound- 
ment  of  B.  F.  who  sat  by,  almost  the  only  thing  that 
was  not  a  cousin  there,  —  old  effaced  imao-es  of  more 
than  half-forgotten  names  and  circumstances  still  crowd- 
ing back  upon  her,  as  words  written  in  lemon  come  out 


136  MY  FIRST  PLAY. 

upon  exposure  to  a  friendly  warmth,  —  when  I  forget 
all  this,  then  may  my  country  cousins  forget  me ;  and 
Bridget  no  more  remember,  that  in  the  days  of  weak- 
ling infancy  I  was  her  tender  charge,  —  as  I  have  been 
her  care  in  foolish  manhood  since,  —  in  those  pretty 
pastoral  walks,  long  ago,  about  Mackery  End,  in  Hert- 
fordshire. 


MY  FIRST  PLAY. 


At  the  north  end  of  Cross  Court  there  yet  stands  a 
portal,  of  some  architectural  pretensions,  though  re- 
duced to  humble  use,  serving  at  present  for  an  entrance 
to  a  printing-office.  This  old  door-way,  if  you  are 
young,  reader,  you  may  not  know  was  the  identical  pit 
entrance  to  old  Drury,  —  Garrick's  Drury,  —  all  of  it 
that  is  left.  I  never  pass  it  without  shaking  some  forty 
years  from  oif  my  shoulders,  recurring  to  the  evening 
when  I  passed  through  it  to  see  my  first  play.  The 
afternoon  had  been  wet,  and  the  condition  of  our  going 
(the  elder  folks  and  myself)  was,  that  the  rain  should 
cease.  With  what  a  beating  heart  did  I  watch  from 
the  window  the  puddles,  from  the  stillness  of  which  I 
was  taught  to  prognosticate  the  desii-ed  cessation  !  I 
seem  to  remember  the  last  spurt,  and  the  glee  with 
which  I  ran  to  announce  it. 

"We  went  with  orders,  which  my  godfather  F.  had 
sent  us.  He  kept  the  oil-sliop  (now  Davies's)  at  the 
comer  of  Featherstone  Buildings,  in  Holborn.  F.  was 
a  tall  grave  person,  lofty  in  speech,  and  had  pretensjoiw 


MY  FIRST   PLAY.  137 

above  Ids  rank.  He  associated  in  those  days  with  John 
Palmer,  the  comedian,  whose  gait  and  bearing  he 
seemed  to  copy ;  if  John  (which  is  quite  as  hkely)  did 
not  rather  borrow  somewhat  of  his  manner  from  my 
godfather.  He  was  also  known  to,  and  visited  by 
Sheridan.  It  was  to  his  house  in  Holborn  that  young 
Brinsley  brought  his  first  wife  on  her  elopement  with 
him  from  a  boarding-school  at  Bath,  —  the  beautiful 
Maria  Linley.  My  parents  were  present  (over  a  qua- 
drille table)  when  he  arrived  in  the  evening  with  his 
harmonious  charge.  From  either  of  these  connections 
it  may  be  inferred  that  my  godfather  could  command 
an  oi'der  for  the  then  Drury  Lane  theatre  at  pleasure,  — 
and,  indeed,  a  pretty  liberal  issue  of  those  cheap  billets, 
in  Brinsley's  easy  autograph,  I  have  heard  him  say 
was  the  sole  remuneration  which  he  had  received  for 
many  years'  nightly  illumination  of  the  orchestra  and 
various  avenues  of  that  theatre,  —  and  he  was  content 
it  should  be  so.  The  honor  of  Sheridan's  familiarity 
—  or  supposed  familiarity  —  was  better  to  my  god- 
father than  money. 

F.  was  the  most  gentlemanly  of  oilmen ;  grandilo- 
quent, yet  courteous.  His  delivery  of  the  commonest 
matters  of  fact  was  Ciceronian.  He  had  two  Latin 
words  almost  constantly  in  his  mouth,  (how  odd  sounds 
Latin  from  an  oilman's  lips  !  )  which  my  better  knowl- 
edge since  has  enabled  me  to  correct.  In  strict  pro- 
nunciation they  should  have  been  sounded  vice  versd,  — 
but  in  those  young  years  they  impressed  me  with  more 
awe  than  they  would  now  do,  read  aright  fi-om  Seneca 
or  Varro,  —  in  his  own  peculiar  pronunciation,  monosyl- 
labically  elaborated,  or  Anglicized,  into  sometlnng  like 
verse  verse.     By  an  imposing  manner,  and  th^  help  of 


138  MY   FIRST   PLAY. 

these  distorted  syllables,  he  climbed  (but  that  was 
little)  to  the  highest  parochial  honors  which  St.  An- 
drew's has  to  bestow. 

He  is  dead,  —  and  thus  much  I  thought  due  to  his 
memory,  both  for  my  first  ordei's  (little  wondrous  talis- 
mans !  —  slight  keys,  and  insignificant  to  outward  sight, 
but  opening  to  me  more  than  Arabian  paradises !)  and 
moi'eover  that  by  his  testamentary  beneficence  I  came 
into  possession  of  the  only  landed  property  which 
I  could  ever  call  my  own,  —  situate  near  the  road- 
way village  of  pleasant  Puckeridge,  in  Hertfordshire. 
When  I  journeyed  down  to  take  possession,  and  planted 
foot  on  my  own  ground,  the  stately  habits  of  the  donor 
descended  upon  me,  and  I  strode  (shall  I  confess  the 
A'anity  ?)  with  larger  paces  over  my  allotment  of  three 
quarters  of  an  acre,  with  its  commodious  mansion  in 
the  midst,  with  the  feeling  of  an  English  freeholder 
that  all  betwixt  sky  and  centre  was  my  own.  The 
estate  has  passed  into  more  prudent  hands,  and  nothmg 
but  an  agrarian  can  restore  it. 

In  those  days  were  pit  orders.  Beshrew  the  uncom- 
fortable manager  who  abolished  them  !  —  with  one  of 
these  we  went.  I  remember  the  waitino;  at  the  door 
—  not  that  which  is  left  —  but  between  that  and  an 
hiner  door  in  shelter,  —  O  when  shall  I  be  such  an  ex- 
pectant again  !  —  with  the  cry  of  nonpareils,  an  indis- 
pensable playhouse  accompaniment  in  those  days.  As 
near  as  I  can  recollect,  the  fashionable  pronunciation 
of  the  theatrical  fruiteresses  then  was,  "  Chase  some 
oranges,  chase  some  numparels,  chase  a  bill  of  the 
play  ;  "  —  chase  |j»ro  chuse.  But  when  we  got  in,  and 
T  beheld  the  green  curtain  that  veiled  a  heaven  to  my 
imagination,   which    was    soon    to    be  disclosed, —-the 


MY   FIRST   PLAY.  139 

breatliless  anticipations  I  endured !  I  had  seen  some- 
thing hke  it  in  the  plate  prefixed  to  Troilus  and  Cres- 
sida,  in  Rowe's  Shakspeare,  —  the  tent  scene  with 
Dioraede,  —  and  a  sight  of  that  plate  can  always  bring 
back  in  a  measure  the  feeling  of  that  evening.  The 
boxes  at  that  time,  ftiU  of  well-dressed  women  of 
quality,  projected  over  the  pit ;  and  the  pilasters  reach- 
ing down  were  adorned  with  a  glistering  substance 
(I  know  not  what)  under  glass  (as  it  seemed),  re- 
sembling —  a  homely  fancy,  —  but  I  judged  it  to  be 
sugar-candy,  —  yet,  to  my  raised  imagination,  divested 
of  its  homelier  qualities,  it  appeared  a  glorified  candy  I 
The  orchestra  lights  at  length  arose,  those  "  fair  Au- 
roras!  "  Once  the  bell  sounded.  It  was  to  ring  out 
yet  once  again,  —  and,  incapable  of  the  anticipation, 
I  reposed  my  shut  eyes  in  a  sort  of  resignation  upon 
the  maternal  lap.  It  rang  the  second  time.  The 
curtain  drew  up,  —  I  was  not  past  six  years  old,  and 
the  play  was  Artaxerxes  ! 

I  had  dabbled  a  little  in  the  Universal  History,  — 
the  ancient  part  of  it,  —  and  here  was  the  court  of 
Persia.  It  was  being  admitted  to  a  sight  of  the  past. 
I  took  no  proper  interest  in  the  action  going  on,  for  I 
understood  not  its  import,  —  but  I  heard  the  word 
Darius,  and  I  was  in  the  midst  of  Daniel.  All  feel- 
ing was  absorbed  in  vision.  Gorgeous  vests,  gardens, 
palaces,  princesses,  passed  before  me.  I  knew  not 
players.  I  was  in  Persepolis  for  the  time,  and  the 
burning  idol  of  their  devotion  almost  converted  me 
into  a  worshipper.  I  was  awe-struck,  and  believed 
those  significations  to  be  something;  more  than  ele- 
mental  fires.  It  was  all  enchantment  and  a  dream. 
No  such  pleasure  has  since  visited  me  but  in  dreams. 


140  MY   FIRST  PLAY. 

Harlequin's  Invasion  followed ;  where,  I  remember, 
the  transformation  of  the  magistrates  into  reverend 
beldams  seemed  to  me  a  piece  of  grave  historic  justice, 
and  the  tailor  carrying  his  own  head  to  be  as  sober  a 
verity  as  the  legend  of  St.  Denys. 

The  next  play  to  which  I  was  taken  was  the  Lady 
of  the  Manor,  of  which,  with  the  exception  of  some 
scenery,  very  faint  traces  are  left  in  my  memory.  It 
was  followed  by  a  pantomine,  called  Lun's  Ghost  —  a 
satiric  touch,  I  apprehend,  upon  Rich,  not  long  since 
dead —  but  to  my  apprehension  (too  sincere  for  satire), 
Lun  was  as  remote  a  piece  of  antiquity  as  Lud  —  the 
father  of  a  line  of  Harlequins  —  transmitting  his  dag- 
ger of  lath  (the  wooden  sceptre)  through  countless 
ages.  I  saw  the  primeval  Motley  come  from  his  silent 
tomb  in  a  ghastly  vest  of  white  patchwork,  like  the 
apparition  of  a  dead  rainbow.  So  Harlequins  (thought 
I)  look  when  they  are  dead. 

My  third  play  followed  in  quick  succession.  It  was 
the  Way  of  the  World.  I  think  I  must  have  sat  at 
it  as  grave  as  a  jvidge ;  for,  I  remember,  the  hysteric 
affectations  of  good  Lady  Wishfort  affected  me  like 
some  solemn  tragic  passion.  Robinson  Crusoe  fol- 
lowed ;  in  which  Crusoe,  man  Friday,  and  the  paiTot, 
were  as  good  and  authentic  as  in  the  stoiy.  The 
clownery  and  pantaloonery  of  these  pantomimes  have 
clean  passed  out  of  my  head.  I  believe,  I  no  more 
laughed  at  them,  than  at  the  same  age  I  should  have 
been  disposed  to  laugh  at  the  grotesque  Gothic  heads 
(seeming  to  me  then  replete  with  devout  meaning) 
that  gape,  and  grin,  in  stone  around  the  inside  of  the 
old  Round  Church  (my  church)  of  the  Templars. 

I  saw  these  plays  in  the  season  1781-2,  when  I  was 


MY   FIRST   PLAY.  141 

from  six  to  seven  years  old.  After  the  intervention 
of  six  or  seven  other  years  (for  at  scliool  all  play-going 
was  inhibited)  I  again  entered  the  doors  of  a  theatre. 
That  old  Artaxerxes  evening  had  never  done  ringing 
m  my  fancy.  I  expected  the  same  feelings  to  come 
again  with  the  same  occasion.  But  we  differ  ft-.ora 
ourselves  less  at  sixty  and  sixteen,  than  the  latter  does 
from  six.  In  that  interval  what  had  I  not  lost  1  At 
the  first  period  I  knew  nothing,  understood  nothing, 
discriminated  nothing.  I  felt  all,  loved  all,  wondered 
all  — 

Was  nourished,  I  could  not  tell  how,  — 

I  had  left  the  temple  a  devotee,  and  was  returned  a 
rationalist.  The  same  things  were  there  materially ; 
but  the  emblem,  the  reference,  was  gone !  The  green 
curtain  was  no  longer  a  veil,  drawn  between  two 
worlds,  the  unfolding  of  which  was  to  bring  back  past 
ages  to  present  a  "  royal  ghost,"  — but  a  certain  quan- 
tity of  green  baize,  which  was  to  separate  the  audience 
for  a  given  time  from  certain  of  their  fellow-men  who 
were  to  come  forward  and  pretend  those  parts.  The 
lights  —  the  orchestra  lights  —  came  up  a  clumsy  ma- 
chinery. The  first  ring,  and  the  second  ring,  was  now 
but  a  trick  of  the  prompter's  bell  —  which  had  been, 
like  the  note  of  the  cuckoo,  a  phantom  of  a  voice,  no 
hand  seen  or  guessed  at  which  ministered  to  its  warn- 
ing.  The  actors  were  men  and  women  painted.  I 
thought  the  fault  was  in  them ;  but  it  was  in  myself, 
and  the  alteration  which  those  many  centuries  —  of 
six  short  twelvemonths  —  had  wrought  in  me.  Per- 
haps it  was  fortunate  for  me  that  the  })lay  of  the  even- 
ing was  but  an  indifferent  comedy,  as  it  gave  me  time 
to  crop  some  unreasonable  expectations,  which  might 


142  MODERN   GALLANTRY. 

have  interfered  with  the  genuine  emotions  with  which 
I  was  soon  after  enabled  to  enter  upon  the  first  appear- 
ance to  me  of  Mrs.  Siddons  in  Isabella.  Comparison 
and  retrospection  soon  yielded  to  the  present  attraction 
of  the  scene;  and  the  theatre  became  to  me,  upon  a 
new  stock,  the  most  delightful  of  recreations. 


MODERN   GALLANTRY. 

In  comparing  modern  with  ancient  manners,  we  are 
pleased  to  compliment  om'selves  upon  the  point  of  gal- 
lantry; a  certain  obsequiousness,  or  deferential  respect, 
which  we  are  supposed  to  pay  to  females,  as  females. 

I  shall  believe  that  this  principle  actuates  our  con- 
duct, when  I  can  forget,  that  in  the  nineteenth  century, 
of  the  era  from  which  we  date  our  civility,  we  are  but 
just  beginning  to  leave  off  the  very  frequent  practice 
jf  whipping  females  in  public,  in  common  with  the 
joarsest  male  offenders. 

I  shall  believe  it  to  be  influential,  when  I  can  shut 
my  eyes  to  the  fact,  that  in  England  women  are  still 
occasionally  —  hanged. 

I  shall  believe  in  it,  when  actresses  are  no  longer 
subject  to  be  hissed  off  a  stage  by  gentlemen. 

I  shall  believe  in  it,  when  Dorimant  hands  a  fishwife 
across  the  kennel ;  or  assists  the  apple-woman  to  pick 
up  her  wandering  fruit,  which  some  unlucky  dray  has 
just  dissipated. 

I  shall  believe  in  it,  when  the  Dorunants  in  humblei 


MODERN   GALLANTRY.  143 

life,  who  would  be  thought  in  their  way  notable  adepts 
in  this  refinement,  shall  act  upon  it  in  places  where 
they  are  not  knoAvn,  or  think  themselves  not  observed, 
—  when  I  shall  see  the  traveller  for  some  rich  trades- 
man part  with  his  admired  box-coat,  to  spread  it  over 
the  defenceless  shoulders  of  the  poor  woman,  who  is 
passing  to  her  parish  on  the  roof  of  the  same  stage- 
coach with  him,  drenched  in  the  rain,  —  when  I  shall 
no  longer  see  a  Avoman  standing  up  in  the  pit  of  a 
London  theatre,  till  she  is  sick  and  faint  with  the 
exertion,  with  men  about  her,  seated  at  their  ease, 
and  jeering  at  her  distress ;  till  one,  that  seems  to 
have  more  manners  or  conscience  than  the  rest,  signifi- 
cantly declares  "  she  should  be  welcome  to  his  seat, 
if  she  were  a  little  younger  and  handsomer."  Place 
this  dapper  warehouse-man,  or  that  rider,  in  a  circle  of 
their  own  female  acquaintance,  and  you  shall  confess 
you  have  not  seen  a  politer-bred  man  in  Lothbury. 

Lastly,  I  shall  begin  to  believe  that  there  is  some 
such  principle  influencing  our  conduct,  when  more 
than  one  half  of  the  drudgery  and  coarse  servitude  of 
the  world  shall  cease  to  be  performed  by  women. 

Until  that  day  comes,  I  shall  never  believe  this 
boasted  point  to  be  anything  more  than  a  conventional 
fiction ;  a  pageant  got  up  between  the  sexes,  in  a 
certain  rank,  and  at  a  certain  time  of  life,  in  which 
both  find  their  account  equally. 

I  shall  be  even  disposed  to  rank  it  among  the  salu- 
tary fictions  of  life,  when  in  polite  circles  I  shall  see 
the  same  attentions  paid  to  age  as  to  youth,  to  homely 
features  as  to  handsome,  to  coarse  complexions  as  to 
clear,  —  to  the  woman,  as  she  is  a  woman,  not  as  she  is 
a  beauty,  a  fortune,  or  a  title. 


1.44  MODERN    GALLANTRY. 

I  shall  believe  It  to  be  something  more  than  a  name, 
when  a  well-dressed  gentleman  in  a  well-dressed  com- 
pany can  advert  to  the  topic  o^  female  old  age  without 
exciting,  and  intending  to  excite,  a  sneer  ;  —  when  the 
phrases  "  antiquated  virginity,"  and  such  a  one  has 
"  overstood  her  market,"  pronounced  in  good  com- 
pany, shall  raise  immediate  offence  in  man,  or  woman, 
that  shall  hear  them  spoken. 

Joseph  Paice,  of  Bread-street  Hill,  merchant,  and 
one  of  the  Directors  of  the  South  Sea  Company,  —  the 
same  to  whom  Edwards,  the  Shakspeare  commentator, 
has  addressed  a  fine  sonnet,  —  was  the  only  pattern  of 
consistent  gallantry  I  have  met  with.  He  took  me 
under  his  shelter  at  an  early  age,  and  bestowed  some 
pains  upon  me.  I  owe  to  his  precepts  and  example 
whatever  there  is  of  the  man  of  business  (and  that 
is  not  much)  in  my  composition.  It  was  not  his  fault 
that  I  did  not  profit  more.  Though  bred  a  Presby- 
terian, and  brought  up  a  merchant,  he  was  the  finest 
gentleman  of  his  time.  He  had  not  one  system  of  at- 
tention to  females  in  the  drawing-room,  and  another  in 
the  shop,  or  at  the  stall.  I  do  not  mean  that  he  made 
no  distinction.  But  he  never  lost  sight  of  sex,  or  over- 
looked it  in  the  casualties  of  a  disadvantageous  situa- 
tion. I  have  seen  him  stand  bareheaded  —  smile  if  you 
please  —  to  a  poor  servant-girl,  while  she  has  been  in- 
quiring of  him  the  way  to  some  street  —  in  such  a 
posture  of  unforced  civility,  as  neither  to  embarrass  her 
in  the  acceptance,  nor  himself  in  the  offer,  of  it.  He 
was  no  dangler,  in  the  common  acceptation  of  the  word, 
after  women ;  but  he  reverenced  and  upheld,  in  every 
form  in  which  it  came  before  him,  womanhood.  I  have 
Been  him  —  nay,  smile  not  —  tenderly  escorting  a  mar- 


MODERN   GALLANTRY.  145 

ket-woman,  whom  he  had  encountered  in  a  shower, 
exalting  his  umbrella  over  her  poor  basket  of  fruit,  that 
it  miglit  receive  no  damage,  with  as  much  carefulness 
as  if  she  had  been  a  countess.  To  the  reverend  form 
of  Female  Eld  he  would  yield  the  wall  (though  it  were 
to  an  ancient  beggar-woman)  with  more  ceremony 
than  we  can  afford  to  show  our  grandams.  He  was 
the  Preux  Chevalier  of  Age  ;  the  Sir  Calidoro,  or  Sir 
Tristan,  to  those  who  have  no  Calidores  or  Tristans  to 
defend  them.  The  roses,  that  had  long  faded  thence, 
still  bloomed  for  him  in  those  withered  and  yellow 
cheeks. 

He  was  never  married,  but  in  his  youth  he  paid  his 
addresses  to  the  beautiful  Susan  Winstanley  —  old 
Winstanley's  daughter  of  Clapton  —  who  dying  in  the 
early  days  of  their  courtship,  confirmed  in  him  the 
resolution  of  perpetual  bachelorship.  It  was  during 
their  short  courtship,  he  told  me,  that  he  had  been 
one  day  treating  his  mistress  with  a  profusion  of  civil 
speeches  —  the  common  gallantries  —  to  which  kind  of 
thing  she  had  hitherto  manifested  no  repugnance  —  but 
in  this  instance  with  no  effect.  He  could  not  obtain 
from  her  a  decent  acknowledgment  in  return.  She 
rather  seemed  to  resent  his  compliments.  He  could 
not  set  it  down  to  caprice,  for  the  lady  had  always 
shown  herself  above  that  littleness.  When  he  ven- 
tured on  the  following  day,  finding  her  a  little  better 
humored,  to  expostulate  with  her  on  her  coldness  of 
yesterday,  she  confessed,  Avith  her  usual  frankness,  that 
she  had  no  sort  of  dislike  to  his  attentions  ;  that  she 
could  even  endure  some  high-flown  compliments  ;  that 
a  young  woman  placed  in  her  situation  had  a  right  to 
expect  all  sort  of  civil   things  said   to  her ;    that  she 

VOL.    III.  10 


146  MODERN   GALLANTRY. 

hoped  she  could  digest  a  dose  of  adulation,  short  o» 
insincerity,  with  as  little  injury  to  her  humility  as  most 
young  women  ;  but  that  —  a  little  before  he  had  com- 
menced his  compliments  —  she  had  overheard  him  by 
accident,  in  rather  rough  language,  rating  a  younaj 
woman,  who  had  not  brought  home  his  cravats  quite  to 
the  appointed  time,  and  she  thought  to  herself,  "  As  I 
am  Miss  Susan  Winstanley,  and  a  young  lady,  —  a  re~ 
puted  beauty,  and  known  to  be  a  fortune,  —  I  can  have 
my  choice  of  the  finest  speeches  from  the  mouth  of  tliis 
very  fine  gentleman  who  is  courting  me,  —  but  if  I  had 
been  poor  Mary  Such-a-one  (naming  the  milliner)^  — 
and  had  failed  of  bringing  home  the  cravats  to  the  ap- 
pointed hour  —  though  perhaps  I  had  sat  up  half  the 
night  to  forward  them  —  what  sort  of  compliments 
should  I  have  received  then  ?  And  my  woman's  pride 
came  to  my  assistance ;  and  I  thought,  that  if  it  were 
only  to  do  me  honor,  a  female,  like  myself,  might  have 
received  handsomer  usage  ;  and  I  was  determined  not 
to  accept  any  fine  speeches,  to  the  compromise  of  that 
sex,  the  belonging  to  which  was  after  all  my  strongest 
claim  and  title  to  them." 

I  think  the  lady  discovered  both  generosity,  and  a 
just  way  of  thmkmg,  in  this  rebuke  which  she  gave 
her  lover  ;  and  I  have  sometimes  imagined,  that  the 
uncommon  strain  of  courtesy,  which  through  life  reg- 
ulated the  actions  and  beha^dor  of  my  friend  towards 
all  of  womankind  indiscriminately,  owed  its  happy 
origin  to  this  seasonable  lesson  from  the  lips  of  his 
lamented  mistress. 

I  wish  the  whole  female  world  would  entertain  the 
same  notion  of  these  things  that  Miss  Winstanley 
showed.     Then  we  should  see  something  of  the  spirit 


THE   OLD   BENCHERS    OF   THE  INNEK  TEMPLE.       147 

of  consistent  gallantry ;  and  no  longer  witness  the 
anomaly  of  the  same  man  —  a  pattern  of  true  polite- 
ness to  a  wife  —  of  cold  contempt,  or  rudeness,  to  a 
sister  —  the  idolater  of  his  female  mistress  —  the  dis- 
parager and  despiser  of  his  no  less  female  aunt,  or 
unfortunate  —  still  female  —  maiden  cousin.  Just  so 
much  respect  as  a  woman  derogates  from  her  own 
sex,  in  whatever  condition  placed  —  her  handmaid, 
or  dependant  —  she  deserves  to  have  diminished  from 
herself  on  that  score ;  and  probably  will  feel  the 
diminution,  when  youth,  and  beauty,  and  advantages, 
not  inseparable  fi'om  sex,  shall  lose  of  their  attrac- 
tion. What  a  woman  should  demand  of  a  man  in 
courtship,  or  after  it,  is  first  —  respect  for  her  as  she 
is  a  woman  ;  —  and  next  to  that  —  to  be  respected 
by  him  above  all  other  women.  But  let  her  stand 
upon  her  female  character  as  upon  a  foundation ; 
and  let  the  attentions,  incident  to  individual  prefer- 
ence, be  so  many  pretty  additaments  and  ornaments 
—  as  many,  and  as  fanciful,  as  you  please  —  to  that 
main  structure.  Let  her  first  lesson  be  with  sweet 
Susan  Winstanley  —  to  reverence  her  sex. 


THE   OLD  BENCHERS   OF  THE  INNER  TEMPLE. 

I  WAS  bom,  and  passed  the  first  seven  years  of 
my  life,  in  the  Temple.  Its  church,  its  halls,  its 
gardens,  its  fountain,  its  river,  I  had  almost  said, — 
for  ui  those  young  years,  what  was  this  king  of  rivers 


148       THE    OLD   BENCHERS    OF   THE   INNER   TEMPLE. 

to  me  but  a  stream  that  watered  our  pleasant  places? 
—  these  are  of  my  oldest  recollections.  I  repeat,  to 
this  day,  no  verses  to  myself  more  frequently,  or 
with  kindlier  emotion,  than  those  of  Spenser,  whcire 
he  speaks  of  this  spot. 

There  when  they  came,  whereas  those  bricky  towers, 
The  which  on  Themmes  brode  aged  back  doth  ride, 
Where  now  the  studious  lawyers  have  their  bowers, 
There  whylome  wont  the  Templer  knights  to  bide, 
Till  they  decayed  tlirough  pride. 

Indeed,  it  is  the  most  elegant  spot  in  the  metropolis. 
What  a  transition  for  a  countryman  visiting  London 
for  the  first  time  —  the  passing  from  the  crowded 
Strand  or  Fleet  Street,  by  mi  expected  avenues,  into 
its  magnificent  ample  squares,  its  classic  gi'een  re- 
cesses !  What  a  cheerful,  liberal  look  hath  that  por- 
tion of  it,  which,  from  three  sides,  overlooks  the  greater 
garden  ;  that  goodly  pile 

Of  building  strong,  albeit  of  Paper  hight, 

confronting  with  massy  contrast,  the  lighter,  older, 
more  fantastically  shrouded  one,  named  of  Harcourt, 
with  the  cheerful  Crown-office  Row  (place  of  my 
kindly  engendure),  right  opposite  the  stately  stream, 
which  washes  the  garden-foot  with  her  yet  scarcely 
trade-polluted  waters,  and  seems  but  just  weaned 
from  her  Twickenham  Naiads !  a  man  would  give 
something  to  have  been  born  in  such  places.  What  a 
collegiate  aspect  has  that  fine  Elizabethan  hall,  where 
the  fountain  plays,  which  I  have  made  to  rise  and  fall, 
how  many  times  !  to  the  astoundment  of  the  young 
urchins,  my  contemporaries,  who,  not  being  able  to 
guess  at  its  recondite  machinery,  were  almost  tempted 


THE  OLD  BENCHERS  OF  THE  INNER  TEMPLE.   119 

to  liail  the  wondrous  work  as  magic !  What  an  antique 
air  had  the  now  almost  effaced  sundials,  with  their 
moral  inscriptions,  seeming  coevals  with  that  Time 
which  they  measured,  and  to  take  their  revelations  of 
its  flight  immediately  from  heaven,  holding  correspond- 
ence with  the  fountain  of  light !  How  would  the  dark 
line  steal  imperceptibly  on,  watched  by  the  eye  of 
childhood,  eager  to  detect  its  movement,  never  catched, 
nice  as  an  evanescent  cloud,  or  the  first  arrests  of 
sleep ! 

Ah !  yet  doth  beauty  like  a  dial-hand 

Steal  from  his  figure,  and  no  pace  perceived ! 

What  a  dead  thing  is  a  clock,  with  its  ponderous 
embowelments  of  lead  and  brass,  its  pert  or  solemn 
dulness  of  communication,  compared  with  the  simple 
altar-like  structure,  and  silent  heart-lansuage  of  the 
old  dial !  It  stood  as  the  garden  god  of  Christian 
gardens.  Why  is  it  almost  everywhere  vanished  ?  If 
its  business-use  be  superseded  by  more  elaborate  in- 
ventions, its  moral  uses,  its  beauty,  might  have  pleaded 
for  its  continuance.  It  spoke  of  moderate  labors,  of 
pleasures  not  protracted  after  sunset,  of  temperance, 
and  good  hours.  It  was  the  primitive  clock,  the  horo- 
loge of  the  first  world.  Adam  could  scarce  have 
missed  it  in  Paradise.  It  was  the  measure  appropri- 
ate for  sweet  plants  and  flowers  to  spring  by,  for  the 
birds  to  apportion  their  silver  warblings  by,  for  flocks 
to  pasture  and  be  led  to  fold  by.  The  shepherd 
"  carved  it  out  quaintly  in  the  sun  ; "  and,  turning 
philosopher  by  the  very  occupation,  provided  it  with 
mottoes  more  touching  than  tombstones.  It  was  a 
pretty  device  of  the  gardener,  recorded  by  Marvell, 
who,  m  the  days  of  artificial  gardening,  made  a  dial 


150       THE   OLD   BENCHERS    OF   THE  INNER  TEMPLE. 

out  of  herbs  and  flowers.  I  must  quote  his  verses  a 
little  higher  up,  for  they  are  full,  as  all  his  serious 
poetry  was,  of  a  witty  delicacy.  They  will  not  come 
in  awkwardly,  I  hope,  in  a  talk  of  fountains,  and  sun- 
dials.    He  is  speaking  of  sweet  garden  scenes;  — 

What  wondrous  life  is  this  I  lead ! 

Ripe  apples  drop  about  my  head. 

The  luscious  clusters  of  the  vine 

Upon  my  mouth  do  crush  their  wine. 

The  nectarine,  and  curious  peach, 

Into  my  hands  themselves  do  reach. 

Stumbling  on  melons,  as  I  pass, 

Insnared  with  flowers,  I  fall  on  grass. 

Meanwhile  the  mind  from  pleasure  less 

Withdraws  into  its  happiness. 

The  mind,  that  ocean,  where  each  kind 

Does  straight  its  own  resemblance  find; 

Yet  it  creates,  transcending  these, 

Far  other  worlds,  and  other  seas, 

Annihilating  all  that's  made 

To  a  green  thought  in  a  green  shade. 

Here  at  the  fountain's  sliding  foot, 

Or  at  some  fruit-tree's  mossy  root, 

Casting  the  body's  vest  aside, 

Jly  soul  into  the  boughs  does  glide; 

There,  like  a  bird,  it  sits  and  sings, 

Then  wets  and  claps  its  silver  wings, 

And,  till  prepared  for  longer  flight, 

Waves  in  its  plumes  the  various  light. 

How  well  the  skilful  gardener  drew, 

Of  flowers  and  herbs,  this  dial  new, 

Where,  from  above,  the  milder  sun 

Does  tlirough  a  fragi-ant  zodiac  run; 

And,  as  it  works,  the  industrious  bee 

Computes  its  time  as  well  as  we. 

How  could  such  sweet  and  wholesome  hours 

Be  reckon'd,  but  with  herbs  and  flowers  ?  * 

The  artificial  fountains  of  the  metropolis  are,  in  like 
manner,  fast  vanishing.  Most  of  them  are  dried  up,  or 
bricked  over.     Yet,  where  one  is  left,  as  in  that  little 

*  From  a  copy  of  verses  entitled  The  Garden 


THE   OLD   BENCHERS   OF    THE  INNER  TEMPLE.       151 

green  nook  behind  the  South-Sea  House,  what  a  fresh- 
ness it  gives  to  tlie  dreary  pile  !  Four  Httle  winged 
marble  boys  used  to  play  their  virgin  fancies,  spoutinor 
out  ever  fresh  streams  from  their  innocent-wanton 
lips  in  the  square  of  Lincoln's-inn,  when  I  was  no 
bigger  than  they  were  figm-ed.  They  are  gone,  and 
the  spring  choked  up.  The  fashion,  they  tell  me  is 
gone  by,  and  these  things  are  esteemed  childish. 
Why  not  then  gratify  children,  by  letting  them  stand  ? 
Lawyers,  I  suppose,  were  children  once.  They  are 
awakening  images  to  them  at  least.  Why  must  every- 
thincr  smack  of  man  and  mannish  ?  Is  the  world  all 
grown  up  ?  Is  childhood  dead  ?  Or  is  there  not  in  the 
bosoms  of  the  wisest  and  the  best  some  of  the  child's 
heart  left,  to  respond  to  its  earliest  enchantments  ? 
The  figures  were  grotesque.  Are  the  stiff-wigged  liv- 
ing figures,  that  still  flitter  and  chatter  about  that  area, 
less  Gothic  in  appearance?  or  is  the  splutter  of  their 
hot  rhetoric  one  half  so  refreshing;  and  innocent  as  the 
little  cool  playful  streams  those  exploded  cherubs  ut- 
tered ? 

They  have  lately  gothicized  the  entrance  to  the 
Inner  Temple-hall,  and  the  library  front ;  to  assimilate 
them,  I  suppose,  to  the  body  of  the  hall,  which  they 
jdo  not  at  all  resemble.  What  is  become  of  the  winged 
horse  that  stood  over  the  former  ?  a  stately  arms  !  and 
who  has  removed  those  fi'escoes  of  the  Virtues,  which 
Italianized  the  end  of  the  Paper  Buildings  ?  —  my  first 
hmt  of  allegory  !  They  must  account  to  me  for  these 
things,  which  I  miss  so  greatly. 

The  terrace  is,  indeed,  left,  which  we  used  to  call 
the  parade ;  but  the  traces  are  passed  away  of  the 
footsteps  which  made  its  pavement  awful  I      It  is  be- 


152       THE   OLD   BENCHERS    OF   THE  INNER  TEMPLE. 

come  common  and  profane.  The  old  benchers  had  it 
almost  sacred  to  themselves,  in  the  forepart  of  the  day 
at  least.  They  might  not  be  sided  or  jostled.  Their 
air  and  dress  asserted  the  parade.  You  left  wide  spaces 
betwixt  you,  when  you  passed  them.  We  walk  on 
even  terms  with  their  successors.     The  roguish  eye  of 

J 11,  ever  ready  to  be  delivered  of  a  jest,  almost 

invites  a  stranger  to  vie  a  repartee  with  it.  But  what 
insolent  familiar  durst  have  mated  Thomas  Coventry  ? 
—  whose  person  was  a  quadrate,  his  step  massy  and 
elephantine,  his  face  square  as  the  lion's,  his  gait  per- 
emptory and  path-keeping,  indivertible  from  his  way  as 
a  moving  column,  the  scarecrow  of  his  inferiors,  the 
browbeater  of  equals  and  superiors,  who  made  a  soK- 
tude  of  children  wherever  he  came,  for  they  fled  his 
insufferable  presence,  as  they  would  have  shunned  an 
Elisha  bear.  His  growl  was  as  thunder  in  their  ears, 
whether  he  spake  to  them  in  mii'tli  or  in  rebuke,  his 
invitatory  notes  being,  indeed,  of  all,  the  most  repul- 
sive and  horrid.  Clouds  of  snuff,  aggravating  the 
natural  terrors  of  his  speech,  broke  from  each  majestic 
nostril,  darkening  the  air.  He  took  it  not  by  pinches, 
but  a  palmful  at  once,  diving  for  it  under  the  mighty 
flaps  of  his  old-fashioned  waistcoat  pocket ;  his  waist- 
coat red  and  angry,  his  coat  dark  rappee,  tinctured  by 
dye  original,  and  by  adjuncts,  with  buttons  of  obsolete 
gold.     And  so  he  paced  the  terrace. 

By  his  side  a  milder  form  was  sometimes  to  be  seen  ; 
the  pensive  gentility  of  Samuel  Salt.  They  were  co- 
evals, and  had  nothing  but  that  and  their  benchership 
in  common.  In  politics  Salt  was  a  whig,  and  Coventry 
a  stanch  tory.  Many  a  sarcastic  growl  did  the  latter 
cast  out  —  for  CoAentry  had  a  rough  spinous  humor  — 


THE   OLD  BENCHERS  OF   THE   INNER   TEMPLE.        153 

Rt  the  political  confederates  of  his  associate,  which 
rehounded  from  the  gentle  bosom  of  the  latter  like 
cannon-balls  from  wool.  You  could  not  ruffle  Samuel 
Salt. 

S.  had  the  reputation  of  being  a  very  clever  man, 
and  of  excellent  discernment  in  the  chamber  practice 
of  the  law.  I  suspect  his  knowledge  did  not  amount 
to  much.  When  a  case  of  difficult  disposition  of 
money,  testamentary  or  otherwise,  came  before  him, 
he  ordinarily  handed  it  over  with  a  few  instructions  to 
his  man  Lovel,  who  was  a  quick  little  fellow,  and 
would  despatch  it  out  of  hand  by  the  light  of  natural 
understanding,  of  which  he  had  an  uncommon  share. 
It  was  incredible  what  repute  for  talents  S.  enjoyed 
by  the  mere  trick  of  gravity.  He  was  a  shy  man  ;  a 
child  might  pose  him  in  a  minute,  —  indolent  and  pro- 
crastinating to  the  last  degree.  Yet  men  would  give 
him  credit  for  vast  application,  in  spite  of  himself.  He 
was  not  to  be  trusted  with  himself  with  impunity.  He 
never  dressed  for  a  dinner  party  but  he  forgot  his 
sword  —  they  wore  swords  then  —  or  some  other  ne- 
cessary part  of  his  equipage.  Lovel  had  his  eye  upon 
him  on  all  these  occasions,  and  ordinarily  gave  him  his 
cue.  If  there  was  anything  which  he  could  speak  un- 
seasonably, he  was  sure  to  do  it.  He  was  to  dine  at  a 
relative's  of  the  unfortunate  Miss  Blandy  on  the  day  of 
her  execution  ;  —  and  L.  who  had  a  wary  foresight  of 
his  probable  hallucinations,  before  he  set  out,  schooled 
him  with  great  anxiety  not  in  any  possible  manner  to 
allude  to  her  story  that  day.  S.  promised  foith fully  to 
observe  the  injunction.  He  had  not  been  seated  in  the 
parloi%  where  the  company  was  expecting  the  dinner 
summons,  four  minutes,  when,  a  pause  in  the  conver- 


154      THE   OLD   BENCHERS   OF   THE   INNER  TEMPLL. 

Bation  ensuing,  he  got  up,  looked  out  of  window,  and 
pulling  down  his  ruffles  —  an  ordinary  motion  wilh 
him — observed,  "it  was  a  gloomy  day,"  and  added, 
"  Miss  Blandy  must  be  hanged  by  this  time,  I  suppose." 
Instances  of  this  sort  were  pei'petual.  Yet  S.  was 
thought  by  some  of  the  greatest  men  of  his  time  a  fit 
person  to  be  consulted,  not  alone  in  matters  pertaining 
to  the  laAV,  but  in  the  ordinary  niceties  and  embarrass- 
ments of  conduct  —  from  force  of  manner  entirely.  He 
never  lauo-hed.  He  had  the  same  good  fortune  among 
the  female  world,  —  was  a  known  toast  with  the  ladies, 
and  one  or  two  are  said  to  have  died  for  love  of 
him  —  I  suppose,  because  he  never  trifled  or  talked 
gallantry  with  them,  or  paid  them,  indeed,  hardly  com- 
mon attentions.  He  had  a  fine  face  and  person,  but 
wanted,  methought,  the  spirit  that  should  have  shown 
them   off  with   advantage    to    the    women.      His    eye 

lacKed  lustre.     Not  so,  thought  Susan  P ;  who,  at 

the  advanced  age  of  sixty,  was  seen,  in  the  cold  even- 
ing  time,  unaccompanied,   wetting    the   pavement  of 

B d  Row,  Avith  tears  that  fell  in  drops  which  might 

be  heard,  because  her  friend  had  died  that  day  —  he, 
whom  she  had  pursued  with  a  hopeless  passion  for  the 
last  forty  years,  —  a  passion,  which  years  could  not  ex- 
tinguish or  abate  ;  nor  the  long-resolved,  yet  gently- 
enforced,  puttings  off  of  luirelenting  bachelorhood  dis- 
suade from  its  cherished  purpose.     Mild  Susan  P , 

thou  hast  now  thy  friend  in  heaven  ! 

Thomas  Coventry  was  a  cadet  of  the  noble  family 
of  that  name.  He  passed  his  youth  in  contracted  cir- 
cumstances, which  gave  him  early  those  parsimonious 
habits  which  in  after-life  never  forsook  him  ;  so  that, 
with  one  windfall  or  another,  about  the  time  T  knew 


THE    OLD   BENCHERS   OF   THE   INNER   TEMPLE.       155 

lilm  he  was  master  of  four  or  five  huncli'ed  thousand 
pounds  ;  nor  did  he  look,  or  walk,  worth  a  moidore 
less.  He  lived  in  a  gloomy  house  opposite  the  pump 
in  Serjeant's-inn,  Fleet  Street.  J.,  the  counsel,  is  doing 
self-imposed  penance  in  it,  for  what  reason  I  divine  not, 
at  this  day.  C.  had  an  agreeable  seat  at  North  Cray, 
where  he  seldom  spent  above  a  day  or  two  at  a  time  in 
the  summer ;  but  preferred,  during  the  hot  months, 
standing  at  his  window  in  this  damp,  close,  well-like 
mansion,  to  watch,  as  he  said,  "  the  maids  drawing 
water  all  day  long."  I  suspect  he  had  his  within-door 
reasons  for  the  preference.  Hio  currus  et  arma  fuere. 
He  mio-ht  think  his  treasures  more  safe.  His  house 
had  the  aspect  of  a  strong-box.  C.  was  a  close  hunks 
—  a  hoarder  rather  than  a  miser  —  or,  if  a  miser,  none 
of  the  mad  Elwes  breed,  who  have  brought  discredit 
upon  a  character,  which  cannot  exist  without  certain 
admirable  points  of  steadiness  and  unity  of  purpose. 
One  may  hate  a  true  miser,  but  cannot,  I  suspect,  so 
easily  despise  him.  By  taking  care  of  the  pence,  he  is 
often  enabled  to  part  with  the  pounds,  upon  a  scale  that 
leaves  us  careless  generous  fellows  haltincr  at  an  im- 
measurable  distance  behind.  C.  gave  away  30,000Z. 
at  once  in  his  lifetime  to  a  blind  charity.  His  house- 
keeping was  severely  looked  after,  but  he  kept  tlu' 
table  of  a  gentleman.  He  would  know  who  came  in 
and  who  went  out  of  his  house,  but  his  kitchen  chim- 
ney was  never  suffered  to  freeze. 

Salt  was  his  opposite  in  this,  as  in  all  —  never  kne^A 
what  he  was  worth  in  the  world ;  and  having  but  a 
competency  for  his  rank,  which  his  indolent  habit- 
were  little  calculated  to  improve,  might  have  suffered 
severely  if  he  had  not  had  honest  people  about  him. 


156       THE   OLD   BENCHERS    OF   THE  INNER  TEMPLE. 

Lovel  took  care  of  everything.  He  was  at  once  his 
clerk,  his  good  servant,  his  di'esser,  liis  friend,  his 
"  flapper,"  his  guide,  stop-watch,  auditor,  treasurer. 
He  did  nothing  without  consulting  Lovel,  or  failed  in 
anything  without  expecting  and  fearing  his  admonish- 
ing. He  put  himself  almost  too  much  in  his  hands, 
had  they  not  been  the  pm'est  in  the  world.  He  re- 
signed his  title  almost  to  respect  as  a  master,  if  L. 
could  ever  have  forgotten  for  a  moment  that  he  was 
a  servant. 

I  knew  this  Lovel.  He  was  a  man  of  an  incorrigible 
and  losmg  honesty.  A  good  fellow  withal,  and  "  would 
strike."  Li  the  cause  of  the  oppressed  he  never  con- 
sidered inequalities,  or  calcidated  the  number  of  his 
opponents.  He  once  wrested  a  sword  out  of  the  hand 
of  a  man  of  quality  that  had  drawn  upon  him ;  and 
pommelled  him  severely  with  the  hilt  of  it.  The 
swordsman  had  offered  insult  to  a  female  —  an  occa- 
sion upon  which  no  odds  against  him  could  have  pre- 
vented the  interference  of  Lovel.  He  would  stand 
next  day  bareheaded  to  the  same  person,  modestly  to 
excuse  his  interference  —  for  L.  never  forgot  rank, 
where  somethino;  better  was  not  concerned.  L.  was 
the  liveliest  little  fellow  breathing,  had  a  face  as  gay  as 
Garrick's,  whom  he  was  said  greatly  to  resemble  (I 
have  a  portrait  of  him  which  confirms  it),  possessed  a 
fine  turn  for  humorous  poetry  —  next  to  Swift  and 
Prior  —  moulded  heads  in  clay  or  plaster  of  Paris  to 
admiration,  by  the  dint  of  natural  genius  merely; 
turned  cribbage  boards,  and  such  small  cabinet  toys, 
to  perfection ;  took  a  hand  at  quadrille  or  bowls  with 
equal  facility ;  made  punch  better  than  any  man  of  his 
degree  in  England ;  had  the  merriest  quips   and  con- 


THE   01  3   BENCHERS   OF   THE  INNER  TEMPLE.       157 

ceits ;  and  was  altogether  as  brimful  of  rogueries  and 
inventions  as  you  could  desire.  He  was  a  brother  of 
the  angle,  moreover,  and  just  such  a  free,  hearty, 
honest  companion  as  Mr.  Izaak  Walton  would  have 
chosen  to  go  a-fishing  with.  I  saw  him  in  his  old  age 
and  the  decay  of  his  faculties,  palsy-smitten,  in  the  last 
sad  stage  of  human  weakness  —  "a  remnant  most 
forlorn  of  what  he  was," — yet  even  then  his  eye 
would  light  up  upon  the  mention  of  his  favorite  Gar- 
rick.  He  was  greatest,  he  would  say,  in  Bayes  — 
"  was  upon  the  stage  nearly  throughout  the  whole 
performance,  and  as  busy  as  a  bee."  At  intervals,  too, 
he  would  speak  of  his  former  life,  and  how  he  came  up 
a  little  boy  from  Lincoln  to  go  to  service,  and  how  his 
mother  cried  at  parting  with  him,  and  how  he  returned, 
after  some  few  years'  absence,  in  his  smart  new  livery, 
to  see  her,  and  she  blessed  herself  at  the  change,  and 
could  hardly  be  brought  to  believe  that  it  Avas  "  her 
own  bairn."  And  then,  the  excitement  subsiding,  he 
would  weep,  till  I  have  wished  that  sad  second  child- 
hood might  have  a  mother  still  to  lay  its  head  upon  her 
lap.  But  the  common  mother  of  us  all  in  no  long  time 
after  received  him  gently  into  hers. 

With  Coventry,  and  with  Salt,  in  their  walks  upon 
the  terrace,  most  commonly  Peter  Pierson  would  join 
to  make  up  a  third.  They  did  not  walk  linked  arm  in 
arm  in  those  days  — "  as  now  our  stout  triumvirs 
sweep  the  streets,"  —  but  generally  with  both  hands 
folded  behind  them  for  state,  or  with  one  at  least  be- 
hind, the  other  carrying  a  cane.  P.  w\'is  a  benevolent, 
but  not  a  prepossessing  man.  He  had  that  in  hi.5  face 
which  you  could  not  term  unhappiness  ;  it  rather  im- 
plied an  incapacity  of  being  happy.     His  cheeks  ^^re 


158       THE    OLD   BENCHERS   OF   THE   INNER  TEMPLE. 

colorless  even  to  whiteness.  His  look  was  uninviting, 
resembling  (but  without  his  sourness)  that  of  our  great 
philanthropist.  I  know  that  he  did  good  acts,  but  I 
could  never  make  out  what  he  was.  Contemporary 
with  these,  but  subordinate,  was  Daines  Barrington  — 
another  oddity  —  he  walked  burly  and  square  —  in 
imitation,  I  think,  of  Coventry  —  howbeit  he  attained 
not  to  the  dignity  of  his  protot}"pe.  Nevertheless,  he 
did  pretty  well,  upon  the  strength  of  being  a  tolerable 
antiquarian,  and  having  a  brother  a  bishop.  When  the 
account  of  his  year's  treasurership  came  to  be  audited, 
the  following  singular  charge  was  unanimously  dis- 
allowed by  the  bench :  "  Item,  disbursed  Mr.  Allen, 
the  gardener,  twenty  shillings,  for  stuff  to  poison  the 
sparrows,  by  my  orders."    Next  to  him  was  old  Barton 

—  a  jolly  negation,  Avho  took  upon  him  the  ordering  of 
the  bills  of  fare  for  the  parliament  chamber,  where  the 
benchers  dine  —  answerino;  to  the  combination  rooms 
at  College  —  much  to  the  easement  of  his  less  epicurean 
brethren.  I  know  nothing  more  of  him.  Then  Read, 
and  Twopeny  —  Read,  good-humored  and  personable 

—  Twopeny,  good-humored,  but  thin,  and  felicitous  in 
jests  upon  his  own  figure.  If  T.  was  thin,  Wharry 
was  attenuated  and  fleeting.  Many  must  remember 
him  (for  he  was  rather  of  later  date)  and  his  singular 
gait,  which  was  performed  by  three  steps  and  a  jump 
regularly  succeeding.  The  steps  were  little  efforts, 
like  that  of  a  child  beginning  to  walk  ;  the  jump  com- 
paratively vigorous,  as  a  foot  to  an  inch.  Where  he 
learned  this  figure,  or  what  occasioned  it,  I  could  never 
discover.  It  was  neither  graceful  in  itself,  nor  seemed 
to  answer  the  purpose  any  better  than  common  walk- 
ing.    The  extreme  tenuity  of  his  frame,  I  suspect,  set 


THE    OLD   BENCHERS    OF   THE   INNER  TEMPLE.       159 

him  uj)on  it.  It  Avas  a  trial  of  poising.  Twopeny 
would  often  rally  him  upon  his  leanness,  and  hail  h*  n 
as  brother  Lusty ;  but  W.  had  no  relish  of  a  joke.  His 
features  were  spiteful.  I  have  heard  that  he  would 
pinch  his  cat's  ears  extremely,  when  anythiiig  had 
offended  him.  Jackson  —  the  omniscient  Jackson  he 
was  called  —  was  of  this  period.  He  had  the  reputa- 
tion of  possessmg  more  multifarious  knowledge  than 
any  man  of  his  time.  He  was  the  Friar  Bacon  of  the 
less  literate  portion  of  the  Temple.  I  remember  a 
pleasant  passage,  of  the  cook  applying  to  him,  with 
much  formality  of  apology,  for  instructions  how  to  write 
down  edge  bone  of  beef  in  his  bill  of  commons.  He 
was  supposed  to  know,  if  any  man  in  the  world  did. 
He  decided  the  orthography  to  be  —  as  I  have  given  it 
—  fortifying  his  authority  with  such  anatomical  reasons 
as  dismissed  the  manciple  (for  the  time)  learned  and 
happy.  Some  do  spell  it  yet,  perversely,  aitch  bono, 
fi'om  a  fanciful  resemblance  between  its  shape  and  that 
of  the  aspirate  so  denominated.  I  had  almost  forgotten 
Mingay  with  the  iron  hand  —  but  he  was  somewhat 
later.  He  had  lost  his  right  hand  by  some  accident, 
and  supplied  it  with  a  grappling-hook,  which  he 
wielded  with  a  tolerable  adroitness.  I  detected  the 
substitute,  before  I  was  old  enough  to  reason  whether 
it  were  artificial  or  not.  I  remember  the  astonishment 
it  raised  in  me.  He  was  a  blusterino;,  loud-talkino- 
person  ;  and  I  reconciled  the  phenomenon  to  my  ideas 
as  an  emblem  of  power  —  somewhat  like  the  horns  in 
the  forehead  of  Michael  Angelo's  Moses.  Baron  Ma- 
seres,  Avho  walks  (or  did  till  very  lately)  in  the  cos- 
tume of  the  reign  of  George  the  Second,  closes  ray 
imperfect  recollections  of  the  old  benchers  of  the 
Inner  Teronle. 


160       THE   OLD   BENCHEKS   OF   THE  INNER  TEMPLE. 

Fantastic  forms,  whither  are  ye  fled  ?  Or,  if  the 
like  of  you  exist,  why  exist  they  no  more  for  me  ?  Ye 
inexphcable,  half-miderstood  appearances,  why  comes 
in  reason  to  tear  away  the  preternatural  mist,  bright 
or  gloomy,  that  enshrouded  you?  Why  make  ye  so 
sorry  a  figure  in  my  relation,  who  made  up  to  me,  —  to 
my  childish  eyes  —  the  mythology  of  the  Temple  ?  In 
those  days  I  saw  Gods,  as  "  old  men  covered  with  a 
mantle,"  walking  upon  the  earth.  Let  the  dreams  of 
classic  idolatry  perish, — extinct  be  the  fairies  and  fairy 
trumpery  of  legendary  fabling,  in  the  heart  of  child- 
hood, there  will,  forever,  spring  up  a  well  of  innocent 
or  wholesome  superstition,  —  the  seeds  of  exaggeration 
will  be  busy  there,  and  vital  —  from  every-day  forms 
educing  the  unknown  and  the  uncoanmon.  In  that 
little  Goshen  there  will  be  light,  when  the  grown 
world  flounders  about  in  the  darkness  of  sense  and 
materiality.  While  childhood,  and  while  dreams, 
reducing  childhood,  shall  be  left,  imagination  shall 
not  have  spread  her  holy  wings  totally  to  fly  the 
earth. 

P.  S.  —  I  have  done  injustice  to  the  soft  shade  of 
Samuel  Salt.  See  what  it  is  to  trust  to  imperfect 
memory,  and  the  erring  notices  of  childhood !  Yet  I 
protest  I  always  thought  that  he  had  been  a  bachelor  ! 
This  gentleman,  R.  N.  informs  me,  married  young,  and 
losing  his  lady  in  childbed,  within  the  first  year  of  their 
union,  fell  into  a  deep  melancholy,  from  the  effects  of 
which,  probably,  he  never  thoroughly  recovered.  In 
what  a  new  light  does  tliis  place  his  rejection  (O  call  it 
by  a  gentler  name !)  of  mild  Susan  P ,  unravel- 
ling into  beauty  certain  peculiarities  of  this  very  shy 


THE   OLD   BENCHERS   OF   THE  INNER  TEMPI  E.       IGl 

and  retiring  character  !  Henceforth  let  no  one  receive 
the  narratives  of  Elia  for  true  records !  They  are,  in 
truth,  but  shadows  of  fact  —  verisimilitudes,  not  veri- 
ties —  or  sitting  but  upon  the  remote  edges  and  out- 
fikirts  of  history.  He  is  no  such  honest  chronicler  as 
R.  N.,  and  would  have  done  better  perhaps  to  have 
consulted  that  gentleman,  before  he  sent  these  incondite 
reminiscences  to  press.  But  tlie  worthy  sub-treasurer 
—  who  respects  his  old  and  his  new  masters  —  would 
but  have  been  puzzled  at  the  indecorous  liberties  of 
Elia.  The  good  man  wots  not,  peradventure,  of  the 
license  which  Magazines  have  arrived  at  in  this  plain- 
speaking  age,  or  hardly  dreams  of  their  existence  be- 
yond the  G-entlemari' s  —  his  furthest  monthly  excur- 
sions in  this  nature  havino;  been  long  confined  to  the 
holy  ground  of  honest  UrharCs  obituary.  May  it  be 
long  before  his  own  name  shall  help  to  swell  those 
columns  of  un envied  flattery  !  —  Meantime,  O  ye  New 
Benchers  of  the  Inner  Temple,  cherish  him  kindly,  for 
he  is  himself  the  kindliest  of  human  creatures.  Should 
infirmities  overtake  him  —  he  is  yet  in  gi'een  and  vig- 
orous senility  —  make  allowances  for  them,  remember- 
ing that  "  ye  yourselves  are  old."  So  may  the  Winged 
Horse,  your  ancient  badge  and  cognizance,  still  flourish ! 
so  may  future  Hookers  and  Seldens  illustrate  your 
church  and  chambers !  so  may  the  span'ows,  in  default 
of  more  melodious  choristers,  unpoisoned,  hop  about 
your  walks !  so  may  the  fresh-colored  and  cleanly  nur- 
sery maid,  who,  by  leave,  airs  her  plaj'ful  charge  in 
your  stately  gardens,  drop  her  prettiest  blushing  curtsy 
as  ye  pass,  reductive  of  juvenescent  emotion  !  so  may 
the  younkers  of  this  generation  eye  you,  pacmg  your 
stately  terrace,  with  the  same  superstitious  veneration, 

VOL.  III.  n 


162  GRACE  BEFORE   MEAT. 

with  which  the  child  Elia  gazed  on  the  Old  Worthies 
tliat  solemnized  the  parade  before  ye  I 


GRACE  BEFORE  MEAT. 

The  custom  of  sa^dng  grace  at  meals  had,  probably, 
its  origin  in  the  early  times  of  the  world,  and  the  hun- 
ter state  of  man,  when  dinners  were  precarious  things, 
and  a  full  meal  was  somethino;  more  than  a  common 
blessing !  when  a  bellyful  was  a  windfall,  and  looked 
like  a  special  providence.  In  the  shouts  and  triumphal 
songs  with  which,  after  a  season  of  sharp  abstinence,  a 
lucky  booty  of  deer's  or  goat's  flesh  would  naturally  be 
ushered  home,  existed,  perhaps,  the  germ  of  the  mod- 
em grace.  It  is  not  otherwise  easy  to  be  understood, 
why  the  blessing  of  food  —  the  act  of  eating  —  should 
have  had  a  particular  expression  of  thanksgiving  an- 
nexed to  it,  distinct  from  that  implied  and  silent  grati- 
tude with  which  we  are  expected  to  enter  upon  the 
enjoyment  of  the  many  other  various  gifts  and  good 
things  of  existence. 

I  own  that  I  am  disposed  to  say  gi'ace  upon  twenty 
other  occasions  in  the  course  of  the  day  besides  my 
dinner.  I  want  a  form  for  setting  out  upon  a  pleasant 
walk,  for  a  moonlight  ramble,  for  a  friendly  meeting, 
or  a  solved  problem.  Why  have  we  none  for  books, 
those  spiritual  repasts  —  a  grace  before  Milton  —  a 
grace  before  Shakspeare  —  a  devotional  exercise  proper 
to  be  said  before  reading  the  Fairy  Queen  ?  —  but  the 
received  ritual  having   prescribed  these  forms  to  the 


tiKACE   BEFORE   MEAT.  163 

solitary  ceremony  of  raanducation,  I  shall  confine  my 
observations  to  the  experience  which  I  have  had  of  the 
grace,  properly  so  called ;  commending  my  new  scheme 
for  extension  to  a  niche  in  the  grand  philosophical, 
poetical,  and  perchance  in  part  heretical,  liturgy,  now 
compiling  by  my  fiiend  Homo  Humanns,  for  the  use 
of  a  certain  snug  congregation  of  Utopian  Rabelaesian 
Christians,  no  matter  where  assembled. 

The  form,  then,  of  the  benediction  before  eating  has 
its  beauty  at  a  poor  man's  table,  or  at  the  simple  and 
unprovocative  repast  of  children.  It  is  here  that  the 
grace  becomes  exceedingly  graceful.  The  indigent 
man,  who  hardly  knows  whether  he  shall  have  a  meal 
the  next  day  or  not,  sits  down  to  his  fare  with  a  pres- 
ent sense  of  the  blessing,  which  can  be  but  feebly 
acted  by  the  rich,  into  whose  minds  the  conception  of 
wantmg  a  dinner  could  never,  but  by  some  extreme 
theory,  have  entered.  The  proper  end  of  food  —  the 
animal  sustenance  —  is  barely  contemplated  by  them. 
The  poor  man's  bread  is  his  daily  bread,  literally  his 
bread  for  the  day.     Their  courses  are  perennial. 

Again  the  plainest  diet  seems  the  fittest  to  be  pre- 
ceded by  the  grace.  That  which  is  least  stimulative 
to  appetite,  leaves  the  mind  most  free  for  foreign  con- 
siderations. A  man  may  feel  thankful,  heartily  thank- 
ful, over  a  dish  of  plain  mutton  with  turnips,  and  have 
leisure  to  reflect  upon  the  ordinance  and  institution  of 
eating ;  when  he  shall  confess  a  perturbation  of  mind, 
inconsistent  with  the  purposes  of  the  grace,  at  the  pres- 
ence of  venison  or  turtle.  When  I  have  sat  (a  rams 
hosj^es')  at  rich  men's  tables,  with  the  savory  soup  and 
messes  steaming  up  the  nostrils,  and  moistening  the  lips 
of  the  guests  with  desire  and  a  distracted  choice,  I  have 


164  GEACE  BEFORE  MEAT. 

felt  the  introduction  of  that  ceremony  to  be  unseason" 
able.  With  the  ravenous  orgasm  upon  you,  it  seems 
impertinent  to  interpose  a  religious  sentiment.  It  is 
a  confusion  of  purpose  to  mutter  out  praises  from  a 
mouth  that  waters.  The  heats  of  epicurism  put  out 
the  gentle  flame  of  devotion.  The  incense  which  rises 
round  is  pagan,  and  the  bellygod  intercepts  it  for  his 
own.  The  very  excess  of  the  provision  beyond  the 
needs,  takes  away  all  sense  of  proportion  between  the 
end  and  means.  The  giver  is  veiled  by  his  gifts. 
You  are  startled  at  the  injustice  of  returning  thanks 
—  for  what?  —  for  having  too  much,  while  so  many 
starve.     It  is  to  praise  the  Gods  amiss. 

I  have  observed  this  awkwardness  felt,  scarce  con- 
sciously perhaps,  by  the  good  man  who  says  the  grace. 
I  have  seen  it  in  clergymen  and  others, — a  sort  of 
shame,  —  a  sense  of  the  co-presence  of  circumstances 
which  unhallow  the  blessing.  After  a  devotional  tone 
put  on  for  a  few  seconds,  how  rapidly  the  speaker  will 
fall  into  his  common  voice !  helping  himself  or  his 
neighbor,  as  if  to  get  rid  of  some  uneasy  sensation  of 
hypocrisy.  Not  that  the  good  man  was  a  hypocrite, 
or  was  not  most  conscientious  in  the  discharge  of  the 
duty;  but  he  felt  in  his  inmost  mind  the  mcompati- 
bility  of  the  scene  and  the  viands  before  him  with  the 
exercise  of  a  calm  and  rational  gratitude. 

I  hear  somebody  exclaim,  —  Would  you  have  Chris- 
tians sit  down  at  table,  like  hogs  to  their  troughs,  with- 
out remembering  the  Giver  ?  —  no,  —  I  would  have 
them  sit  down  as  Christians,  remembering  the  Giver, 
and  less  like  hogs.  Or  if  their  appetites  must  run  riot, 
and  they  must  pamper  themselves  with  delicacies  for 
which  east  and  west  are  ransacked,  I  would  have  them 


GRACE   BEFORE   MEAT.  165 

postpone  their  benediction  to  a  fitter  season,  when  ap- 
petite is  laid ;  when  the  still  small  voice  can  be  heard, 
and  the  reason  of  the  grace  returns  —  with  temperate 
diet  and  restricted  dishes.  Gluttony  and  surfeiting  are 
no  proper  occasions  for  thanksgiving.  When  Jeshurun 
waxed  fat,  we  read  that  he  kicked.  Virgil  knew  the 
harpy-nature  better,  when  he  put  into  the  mouth  of 
Celgeno  anything  but  a  blessing.  We  may  be  grate- 
fully sensible  of  the  deliciousness  of  some  kinds  of  food 
beyond  others,  though  that  is  a  meaner  and  inferior 
gratitude ;  but  the  proper  object  of  the  grace  is  suste- 
nance, not  relishes ;  daily  bread,  not  delicacies ;  the 
means  of  life,  and  not  the  means  of  pampering  the  car- 
cass. With  what  fi'ame  or  composure,  I  wonder,  can 
a  city  chaplain  pronounce  his  benediction  at  some  great 
Hall-feast,  when  he  knows  that  his  last  concludinf^ 
pious  word  —  and  that,  in  all  probability,  the  sacred 
name  which  he  preaches  —  is  but  the  signal  for  so 
many  impatient  haiiDies  to  commence  their  foul  orgies, 
with  as  little  sense  of  true  thankfulness  (which  is  tem- 
perance) as  those  Virgilian  fowl !  It  is  well  if  the 
good  man  himself  does  not  feel  his  devotions  a  little 
clouded,  those  foggy  sensuous  steams  mingling  with 
and  polluting  the  pure  altar  sacrifice. 

The  severest  satire  upon  fall  tables  and  surfeits  is  the 
banquet  which  Satan,  in  the  Paradise  Regained,  pro- 
vides for  a  temptation  m  the  wilderness :  — 

A  table  richly  spread  in  regal  mode 
With  dishes  piled,  and  meats  of  noblest  sort 
And  savor;  beasts  of  chase,  or  fowl  of  game, 
In  pastry  built,  or  from  the  spit,  or  boiled, 
Gris- amber-steamed;  all  fish  from  sea  or  shore, 
Freshet  or  purling  brook,  for  which  was  drained 
Pontus,  and  Lucrme  Lay,  and  Afric  coast. 


166  GRACE   BEFORE   MEAT. 

The  Tempter,  I  warrant  3'ou,  thought  these  catcs 
would  go  down  without  the  recommendatory  preface  of 
a  benediction.  They  are  Hke  to  be  short  graces  where 
the  devil  plays  the  host.  I  am  afraid  the  poet  wants 
his  usual  decorum  m  this  place.  Was  he  thinking  of 
the  old  Roman  luxuiy,  or  of  a  gaudy  day  at  Cam- 
bridge ?  This  was  a  temptation  fitter  for  a  Heliogaba- 
lus.  The  whole  banquet  is  too  civic  and  culinary,  and 
the  accompaniments  altogether  a  profanation  of  that 
deep,  abstracted  holy  scene.  The  mighty  artillery  of 
sauces,  wliich  the  cook-fiend  conjures  up,  is  out  of  pro- 
portion to  the  simple  wants  and  plain  hunger  of  the 
guest.  He  that  disturbed  him  in  his  dreams,  from  his 
dreams  might  have  been  taught  better.  To  the  tem- 
perate  fantasies  of  the  famished  Son  of  God,  what  sort 
of  feasts  presented  themselves  ?  —  He  dreamed  iildeed. 

As  appetite  is  wont  to  dream, 
Of  meats  and  drinks,  nature's  refreshment  sweet 

But  what  meats  ?  — 

Him  thought,  he  by  the  brook  of  Cherith  stood. 
And  saw  the  ravens  with  their  horny  beaks 
Food  to  Elijah  bringing  even  and  morn; 
Though  ravenous,  taught  to  abstain  from  what  they 

brought : 
He  saw  the  prophet  also  how  he  fled 
Into  the  desert,  and  how  there  he  slept 
Under  a  juniper;  then  how  awaked 
He  found  his  supper  on  the  coals  prepared, 
And  by  the  angel  was  bid  rise  and  eat, 
And  ate  the  second  time  after  repose, 
The  strength  whereof  sufficed  him  forty  days; 
Sometimes,  that  with  Elijah  he  partook. 
Or  as  a  guest  with  Daniel  at  his  pulse. 

Nothing  in  Milton  is  finelier  fancied  than  these  temper- 
ate dreams  of  the  divine  Huno-erer.    To  which  of  these 


GRACE  BEIORE   MEAT.  1G7 

two  Visionary  banquets,  think  you,  would  the  introduc- 
tion of  what  is  called  the  grace  have  been  the  most 
fitting  and  pertinent? 

Theoretically  I  am  no  enemy  to  graces ;  but  prac- 
tically I  own  that  (before  meat  especially)  they  seem 
to  involve  something  awkward  and  unseasonable.  Our 
appetites,  of  one  or  another  kind,  are  excellent  spurs 
to  our  reason,  which  might  otherwise  but  feebly  set 
about  the  great  ends  of  preserving  and  continuing  the 
species.  They  are  fit  blessings  to  be  contemplated  at 
a  distance  with  a  becoming  gratitude ;  but  the  moment 
of  appetite  (the  judicious  reader  will  apprehend  me) 
is,  perhaps,  the  least  fit  season  for  that  exercise.  The 
Quakers,  who  go  about  their  business  of  every  descrip- 
tion with  more  calmness  than  we,  have  more  title  to 
the  use  of  these  benedictory  prefaces.  I  have  always 
admired  their  silent  grace,  and  the  more  because  T  have 
observed  their  applications  to  the  meat  and  drink  fol- 
lowing to  be  less  passionate  and  sensual  than  ours. 
They  are  neither  gluttons  nor  wine-bibbers  as  a  people. 
They  eat,  as  a  horse  bolts  his  chopped  hay,  with  indif- 
ference, calmness,  and  cleanly  circumstances.  They 
neither  grease  nor  slop  themselves.  When  I  see  a 
citizen  in  his  bib  and  tucker,  I  cannot  imagine  it  a 
surplice. 

I  am  no  Quaker  at  my  food.  I  confess  I  am  not 
indifferent  to  the  kinds  of  it.  Those  unctuous  morsels 
of  deer's  flesh  were  not  made  to  be  received  with  dis- 
passionate services.  I  hate  a  man  who  swallows  it, 
affecting  not  to  know  what  he  is  eating.  I  suspect 
his  taste  in  higher  matters.  I  shrink  instinctively  fi'om 
one  who  professes  to  like  minced  veal.  There  is  a 
physiognomical  character  in  the  tastes  for  food.    C 


168  GRACE   BEFORE   MEAT. 

holds  that  a  man  cannot  have  a  pure  mind  who  refuses 
apple-dumplings.  I  am  not  certain  but  he  is  right. 
With  the  decay  of  my  first  innocence,  I  confess  a  less 
and  less  relish  daily  for  those  innocuous  cates.  The 
whole  vegetable  tribe  have  lost  their  e;ust  with  me. 
Only  I  stick  to  asparagus,  which  still  seems  to  inspire 
gentle  thoughts.  I  am  impatient  and  querulous  under 
culinary  disappointments,  as  to  come  home  at  the  din- 
ner hour,  for  instance,  expecting  some  savory  mess, 
and  to  find  one  quite  tasteless  and  sapidless.  Butter  ill 
melted  —  that  commonest  of  kitchen  failures  —  puts  me 
beside  my  tenor.  The  author  of  The  Rambler  used  to 
make  inarticulate  animal  noises  over  a  favorite  food. 
Was  this  the  music  quite  proper  to  be  preceded  by  the 
grace  ?  or  would  the  pious  man  have  done  better  to 
postpone  his  devotions  to  a  season  when  the  blessing 
might  be  contemplated  with  less  perturbation  ?  I 
quarrel  with  no  man's  tastes,  nor  would  set  my  thin 
face  against  those  excellent  things,  in  their  way,  jollity 
and  feasting.  But  as  these  exercises,  however  laudable, 
have  little  in  them  of  grace  or  gracefulness,  a  man 
should  be  sure,  before  he  ventures  so  to  grace  them, 
that  wliile  he  is  pretending  his  devotions  otherwhere, 
he  is  not  secretly  kissing  his  hand  to  some  great  fish  — 
his  Dagon  —  with  a  special  consecration  of  no  ark  but 
the  fat  tm'een  before  him.  Graces  are  the  sweet  pre- 
luding strains  to  the  banquets  of  angels  and  childi'en ; 
to  the  roots  and  severer  repasts  of  the  Chartreuse ;  to 
the  slender,  but  not  slenderly  acknowledged,  refection 
of  the  poor  and  humble  man  ;  but  at  the  heaped-up 
boards  of  the  pampered  and  the  luxurious  they  become 
of  dissonant  mood,  less  timed  and  tuned  to  the  occa- 
sion, methmks,  than  the  noise  of  those  better  befitting 


GRACE   BEFORE   MEAT.  169 

organs  would  be  which  children  hear  tales  of,  at  Hog's 
Norton.  We  sit  too  long  at  our  meals,  or  are  too 
curious  in  the  study  of  them,  or  too  disordered  in  our 
application  to  them,  or  engross  too  great  a  portion  of 
those  good  things  (which  should  be  common)  to  our 
share,  to  be  able  with  any  grace  to  say  grace.  To  be 
thankful  for  what  we  grasp  exceeding  our  proportion, 
is  to  add  hypocrisy  to  injustice.  A  lurking  sense  of 
this  truth  is  what  makes  the  performance  of  this  duty 
so  cold  and  spiritless  a  service  at  most  tables.  In 
houses  where  the  grace  is  as  indispensable  as  the  nap- 
km,  who  has  not  seen  that  never-settled  question  arise, 
as  to  wlio  shall  say  it  ?  while  the  good  man  of  the  house 
and  the  visitor  clergyman,  or  some  other  guest,  belike 
of  next  authority,  from  years  or  gravity,  shall  be 
bandying  about  the  office  between  them  as  a  matter 
of  compliment,  each  of  them  not  unwilling  to  shift  the 
awkward  burden  of  an  equivocal  duty  from  his  own 
shoulders  ? 

I  once  drank  tea  in  company  with  two  Methodist 
divines  of  different  persuasions,  whom  it  was  my  for- 
tune to  introduce  to  each  other  for  the  first  time  that 
evening.  Before  the  first  cup  was  handed  round,  one 
of  these  reverend  gentlemen  put  it  to  the  other,  with 
all  due  solemnity,  whether  he  chose  to  say  anything. 
It  seems  it  is  the  custom  with  some  sectaries  to  put  up 
a  short  prayer  before  this  meal  also.  His  reverend 
brother  did  not  at  first  quite  apprehend  him,  but  upon 
an  explanation,  with  little  less  importance  he  made 
answer  that  it  was  not  a  custom  known  in  his  church  ; 
in  which  courteous  evasion  the  other  acquiescmg  for 
good  manners'  sake,  or  in  compliance  with  a  weak 
brother,  the   supplementaiy  or  tea-grace  was  waived 


170  GRACE   BEFORE   MEAT. 

altogether.  With  what  spu-It  might  not  Lucian  liavo 
painted  two  priests  of  his  rehgion  playing  into  each 
other's  hands  the  compliment  of  performing  or  omitting 
a  sacrifice,  —  the  hungry  God  meantime,  doubtful  of 
his  incense,  with  expectant  nostrils  hovering  over  the 
two  flamens,  and  (as  between  two  stools)  going  away 
in  the  end  without  his  supper. 

A  short  form  upon  these  occasions  is  felt  to  want 
reverence ;  a  long  one,  I  am  afi-aid,  cannot  escape  the 
charge  of  impertmence.  I  do  not  quite  approve  of 
the  epigrammatic  conciseness  with  which  that  equiv- 
ocal wag  (but  my  pleasant  school-fellow)  C.  V.  L., 
when  importimed  for  a  grace,  used  to  inquire,  first 
slyly  leering  down  the  table,  "  Is  there  no  clergyman 
here,"  —  significantly  adding,  "  Thank  G — ."  Nor 
do  I  think  our  old  form  at  school  quite  pertinent, 
where  we  were  used  to  preface  our  bald  bread-and- 
cheese-suppers  with  a  preamble,  connecting  with  that 
humble  blessing  a  recognition  of  benefits  the  most 
awful  and  overwhelming;  to  the  imagination  which 
religion  has  to  offer.  Non  tunc  illis  erat  locus.  I 
remember  we  were  put  to  it  to  reconcile  the  phrase 
*'  good  creatures,"  upon  which  the  blessing  rested, 
with  the  fare  set  before  us,  wilfully  understanding  that 
expression  in  a  low  and  animal  sense,  —  till  some  one 
recalled  a  legend,  which  told  how,  in  the  golden  days 
of  Christ's,  the  young  Hospitallers  were  wont  to  have 
smoking  joints  of  roast  meat  upon  their  nightly  boards, 
till  some  pious  benefactor,  commiserating  the  decencies, 
ratlier  than  the  palates,  of  the  children,  commuted  our 
flesh  for  garments,  and  gave  us  —  horresco  referens  — 
Irousei-s  instead  of  mutton. 


DREAM-CHILDREN;  A  RE  VERY.  171 


DREAM-CHILDREN;  A  REVERY. 

Children  love  to  listen  to  stories  about  their  el  dors, 
when  they  were  children  ;  to  stretch  their  imagination 
to  the  conception  of  a  traditionary  great-uncle,  or 
grandame,  whom  they  never  saw.  It  was  in  this  spirit 
that  my  httle  ones  crept  about  me  the  other  evening  to 
hear  about  their  great-grandmother  Field,  who  lived  in 
a  great  house  in  Norfolk  (a  hundred  times  bigger  than 
that  in  which  they  and  papa  lived)  which  had  been  the 
scene  —  so  at  least  it  was  generally  believed  in  that 
part  of  the  country  —  of  the  tragic  incidents  which 
they  had  lately  become  familiar  with  from  the  ballad 
of  the  Children  in  the  Wood.  Certain  it  is  that  the 
whole  stoiy  of  the  children  and  their  cruel  uncle  was 
to  be  seen  fairly  carved  out  in  wood  upon  the  chimney- 
piece  of  the  great  hall,  the  whole  story  down  to  the 
Robin  Redbreasts  ;  till  a  foolish  rich  person  pulled  it 
down  to  set  up  a  marble  one  of  modern  invention  in 
its  stead,  with  no  story  vipon  it.  Here  Alice  put  out 
one  of  her  dear  mother's  looks,  too  tender  to  be  called 
upbraiding.  Then  I  v/ent  on  to  say,  how  religious  and 
how  good  their  great-grandmother  Field  was,  how  be- 
loved and  respected  by  everybody,  though  she  Avas  not 
indeed  the  mistress  of  this  great  house,  but  had  only 
the  charge  of  it  (and  yet  in  some  respects  she  might 
be  said  to  be  the  mistress  of  it  too)  committed  to  her 
by  the  owner,  who  preferred  living  in  a  newer  and 
more  fashionable  mansion  which  he  had  purchased 
somewhere  in  the  adjoining  county  ;  but  still  she  lived 
in  it  in  a  manner  as  if  it  had  been  her  own,  md  kept 


172  DREAM-CHILDREN;  A  RE  VERY. 

up  the  dignity  of  the  great  house  in  a  sort  while  she 
lived,  which  afterwards  came  to  decay,  and  was  nearly 
pulled  down,  and  all  its  old  ornaments  stripped  and 
carried  away  to  the  owner's  other  house,  wdiere  they 
were  set  up,  and  looked  as  awkward  as  if  some  one 
were  to  carry  away  the  old  tombs  they  had  seen  lately 
at  the  Abbey,  and  stick  them  up  in  Lady  C.'s  tawdry 
gilt  drawing-room.  Here  John  smiled,  as  much  as  to 
say,  "  that  would  be  foolish  indeed."  And  then  I  told 
how,  when  she  came  to  die,  her  funeral  was  attended 
by  a  concourse  of  all  the  poor,  and  some  of  the  gentry 
too,  of  the  neighborhood  for  many  miles  round,  to  show 
their  respect  for  her  memory,  because  she  had  been 
such  a  good  and  religious  woman  ;  so  good  indeed  that 
she  knew  all  the  Psaltery  by  heart,  ay,  and  a  great 
part  of  the  Testament  besides.  Here  little  Alice 
spread  her  hands.  Then  I  told  what  a  tall,  upright, 
graceful  person  then  great-grandmother  Field  once 
was ;  and  how  in  her  youth  she  was  esteemed  the 
best  dancer,  —  here  Alice's  little  right  foot  played  an 
involuntary  movement,  till,  upon  my  looking  grave,  it 
desisted,  —  the  best  dancer,  I  was  saying,  in  the  county, 
till  a  cruel  disease,  called  a  cancer,  came,  and  bowed 
her  down  with  pain  ;  but  it  could  never  bend  her  good 
spirits,  or  make  them  stoop,  but  they  were  still  upriglit, 
because  she  was  so  good  and  religious.  Then  I  told 
how  she  was  used  to  sleep  by  herself  m  a  lone  chamber 
of  the  great  lone  house ;  and  how  she  believed  that  an 
apparition  of  two  infants  was  to  be  seen  at  midnight 
gliding  up  and  down  the  great  staircase  near  where 
she  slept,  but  she  said  "  those  innocents  would  do  her 
no  harm  ;  "  and  how  frightened  I  used  to  be,  though 
in  those  days  I  had  my  maid  to  sleep  w4th  me,  because 


DEEAM-CHILDREN;   A  RhVERY.  173 

1  was  never  half  so  good  or  religious  as  she,  -  -  and  jet 
I  never  saw  the  infants.  Here  John  expanded  all  his 
eyebrows  and  tried  to  look  courageous.  Then  I  told 
how  good  she  was  to  all  her  grandchildren,  havmg  us 
to  the  great  house  in  the  holidays,  where  I  in  particular 
used  to  spend  many  hours  by  myself,  in  gazing  upon 
the  old  busts  of  the  twelve  Caesars,  that  had  been  Em- 
perors of  Rome,  till  the  old  marble  heads  would  seem 
to  live  again,  or  I  to  be  turned  into  marble  with  them ; 
how  I  never  could  be  tired  with  roaming  about  that 
huge  mansion,  with  its  vast  empty  rooms,  with  their 
worn-out  hangings,  fluttering  tapestry,  and  carved 
oaken  pannels,  with  the  gilding  almost  rubbed,  out,  — 
sometimes  in  the  spacious  old-fashioned  gardens,  which 
I  had  almost  to  myself,  unless  when  now  and  then  a 
solitary  gardening  man  would  cross  me,  —  and  how  the 
nectarines  and  peaches  hung  upon  the  walls,  without 
my  ever  offering  to  pluck  them,  because  they  were 
forbidden  fruit,  unless  now  and  then,  —  and  because  I 
had  more  pleasure  in  strolling  about  among  the  old 
melancholy-looking  yew-trees,  or  the  firs,  and  picking 
up  the  red  berries,  and  the  fir-apples,  wliich  were  good 
for  nothing  but  to  look  at,  —  or  in  lying  about  upon  the 
fresh  grass  with  all  the  fine  garden  smells  around  me,  — 
or  basking  in  the  orangery,  till  I  could  almost  fancy 
myself  ripening  too  along  with  the  oranges  and  the 
limes  in  that  grateful  warmth,  —  or  in  watching  the 
dace  that  darted  to  and  fro  in  the  fish-pond,  at  the 
bottom  of  the  garden,  with  hei*e  and  there  a  great 
Bulky  pike  hanging  midway  down  the  water  in  silent 
Btate,  as  if  it  mocked  at  their  impertinent  friskings  ;  — 
I  had  more  pleasure  in  these  busy-idle  diversions  than 
in  all  the  sweet  flavors  of  peaches,  nectarines,  oranges, 


174  DREAM-CHILDREN;  A  REVERY. 

and  such-like  common  baits  of  children.  Here  John 
slyly  deposited  back  upon  the  plate  a  bunch  of  grapes, 
which,  not  unobserved  by  Alice,  he  had  meditated 
dividmg  with  her,  and  both  seemed  willing  to  rehn- 
quish  them  for  the  present  as  irrelevant.  Then,  in 
somewhat  a  more  heightened  tone,  I  told  how,  though 
their  great-grandmother  Field  loved  all  her  grand- 
cliildren,  yet  in  an  especial  manner  she  might  be  said 

to  love  their  uncle,   John  L ,  because  he  was  so 

handsome  and  spirited  a  youth,  and  a  king  to  the  rest 
of  us  ;  and,  instead  of  moping  about  in  solitary  corners, 
like  some  of  us,  he  would  mount  the  most  mettlesome 
horse  he  could  get,  when  but  an  imp  no  bigger  than 
themselves,  and  make  it  carry  him  half  over  the  county 
in  a  morning,  and  join  the  hunters  when  there  were 
any  out,  —  and  yet  he  loved  the  old  great  house  and 
gardens  too,  but  had  too  much  spirit  to  be  always 
pent  up  witliin  their  boundaries,  —  and  how  their  uncle 
grew  up  to  man's  estate  as  brave  as  he  was  handsome, 
to  the  admiration  of  everybody,  but  of  their  great- 
grandmother  Field  most  especially ;  and  how  he  used 
to  carry  me  upon  his  back  when  I  was  a  lame-footed 
boy  —  for  he  was  a  good  bit  older  than  me — many  a 
mile  when  I  could  not  walk  for  pain  ;  —  and  how  in 
after-life  he  became  lame-footed  too,  and  I  did  not 
always  (I  fear)  make  allowances  enough  for  him  when 
he  was  impatient  and  in  pain,  nor  remember  suffi- 
ciently how  considerate  he  had  been  to  me  when  I  was 
lame-footed ;  and  how  when  he  died,  thoiigh  he  had 
not  been  dead  an  hour,  it  seemed  as  if  he  had  died  a 
gi'eat  while  ago,  such  a  distance  there  is  betwixt  life 
and  death ;  and  how  I  bore  his  death,  as  I  thought 
pretty  well   at  first,    but   afterwards   it  haimted  and 


DREAM-CHILDREN;   A   RE  VERY.  175 

haunted  me ;  and  though  I  did  not  cry  or  take  it  to 
heart  as  some  do,  and  as  I  think  he  would  have  done 
if  I  had  died,  yet  I  missed  him  all  day  long,  and  knew 
not  till  then  how  much  I  had  loved  him.  I  missed  his 
kindness,  and  I  missed  his  crossness,  and  wished  him 
to  be  alive  again,  to  be  quarrelling  with  him  (for  we 
quarrelled  sometimes),  rather  than  not  have  him  again, 
and  was  as  uneasy  without  him,  as  he  their  poor  uncle 
must  have  been  when  the  doctor  took  off  his  limb. 
Here  the  children  fell  a-crying,  and  asked  if  then*  little 
mourning  which  they  had  on  was  not  for  Uncle  John, 
and  they  looked  up,  and  prayed  me  not  to  go  on  about 
their  uncle,  but  to  tell  them  some  stories  about  their 
pretty  dead  mother.  Then  I  told  how,  for  seven  long 
years,  in  hope  sometimes,  sometimes  in  despair,  yet 
persisting  ever,  I  coui'ted  the  fair  Alice  W — n  ;  and, 
as  much  as  children  could  understand,  I  explained  to 
hem  what  coyness,  and  difficulty,  and  denial  meant  in 
maidens,  —  when  suddenly,  turning  to  Alice,  the  soul 
of  the  first  Alice  looked  out  at  her  eyes  with  such  a 
reality  of  representment,  that  I  became  in  doubt  which 
of  them  stood  there  before  me,  or  whose  that  bright 
hair  was ;  and  while  I  stood  gazing,  both  the  children 
gradually  grew  fainter  to  my  view,  receding,  and  still 
receding,  till  notliing  at  last  but  two  mournful  features 
were  seen  in  the  uttermost  distance,  which,  without 
speech,  strangely  unpressed  upon  me  the  effects  of 
speech :  "  We  are  not  of  Alice,  nor  of  thee,  nor  are  we 
children  at  all.  The  children  of  Alice  call  Bartrum 
father.  We  are  nothing ;  less  than  nothing,  and 
dreams.  We  are  only  what  might  have  been,  and 
must  wait  upon  the  tedious  shores  of  Lethe  millions  of 
ages  before  we  have  existence,  and  a  name;  " and 


176  DISTANT   CORRESPONDENTS. 

immediately  awaking,  I  found  myself  quietly  seated  in 
my  bachelor  armchair,  where  I  had  fallen  asleep,  with 
the  faithful  Bridget  unchanged  by  my  side,  —  but  John 
L.  (or  James  Elia)  was  gone  forever. 


DISTANT   CORRESPONDENTS. 

IN  A  LETTER  TO  B.  F.,  ESQ.,  AT  SYDNEY,  NEW  SOUTH  WALES. 

My  dear  F.  —  When  I  think  how  welcome  the 
sight  of  a  letter  fi*om  the  world  where  you  were  born 
must  be  to  you  in  that  strange  one  to  which  you  have 
been  transplanted,  I  feel  some  compunctious  visitings 
at  my  long  silence.  But,  indeed,  it  is  no  easy  effort  to 
set  about  a  correspondence  at  our  distance.  The  weary 
world  of  waters  between  us  oppresses  the  imagination. 
It  is  difficult  to  conceive  how  a  scrawl  of  mine  should 
ever  stretch  across  it.  It  is  a  sort  of  presumption  to 
expect  that  one's  thoughts  shoidd  live  so  far.  It  is 
like  writing  for  posterity;  and  reminds  me  of  one  of 
Mrs.  Rowe's  superscriptions,  "  Alcander  to  Strephon  in 
the  Shades."  Cowley's  Post-Angel  is  no  more  than 
would  be  expedient  in  such  an  intercourse.  One  drops 
a  packet  at  Lombard  Street,  and  in  twenty-four  hours 
a  friend  in  Cumberland  gets  it  as  fi'esh  as  if  it  came  in 
ice.  It  is  only  like  whispering  through  a  long  trumpet. 
But  suppose  a  tube  let  down  from  the  moon,  Avith 
yourself  at  one  end,  and  the  man  at  the  other ;  it  Avould 
be  some  balk  to  the  spirit  of  conversation,  if  you  knew 
that  the  dialogue  exchanged  with  that  interesting  theos- 


DISTANT   CORRESPONDENTS.  177 

ophist  would  take  two  or  three  revolutions  of  a  higher 
luminary  in  its  passage.  Yet  for  aught  I  know,  you 
may  be  some  parasangs  nigher  that  primitive  idea  — 
Plato's  man  —  than  we  in  England  here  have  the 
honor  to  reckon  ourselves. 

Epistolary  matter  usually  compriseth  three  topics : 
news,  sentiment,  and  puns.  In  the  latter,  I  include  all 
non-serious  subjects  ;  or  subjects  serious  in  themselves, 
but  treated  after  my  fashion,  non-seriously.  —  And 
first,  for  news.  In  them  the  most  desirable  circum- 
stance, I  suppose,  is,  that  they  shall  be  tiaie.  But  what 
security  can  I  have  that  what  I  now  send  you  for  tinith 
shall  not,  before  you  get  it,  unaccountably  turn  into  a 
lie  ?  For  instance,  our  mutual  friend  P.  is  at  this  pres- 
ent writing  —  my  Now  — in  good  health,  and  enjoys  a 
fair  share  of  worldly  reputation.  You  are  glad  to  hear 
it.  This  is  natural  and  friendly.  But  at  this  present 
reading  —  your  Noio  —  he  may  possibly  be  in  the 
Bench,  or  going  to  be  hanged,  which  in  reason  ought 
to  abate  something  of  your  transport  (i.  e.  at  hearing  he 
was  well,  &c.),  or  at  least  considerably  to  modify  it.  I 
am  going  to  the  play  this  evening,  to  have  a  laugh  with 
Munden.     You  have  no  theatre,  I  think  you  told  me, 

in  your  land  of  d d  realities.     You  naturally  lick 

your  lips,  and  envy  me  my  felicity.  Think  but  a  mo- 
ment, and  you  will  correct  the  hateful  emotion.  Why 
it  is  Sunday  morning  with  you,  and  1823.  This  con- 
fusion of  tenses,  this  grand  solecism  of  two  presents^  is 
in  a  degree  common  to  all  postage.  But  if  I  sent  you 
word  to  Bath  or  Devizes,  that  I  was  expecting  the 
aforesaid  treat  this  evening,  though  at  the  moment  you 
received  the  intelligence  my  full  feast  of  fun  would  be 
over,  yet  there  would  be  for  a  day  or  two  after,  as  you 

VOL.   III.  12 


178  DISTANT    CORRESPONDENTS. 

would  well  know,  a  smack,  a  relish  left  upon  my  men- 
tal palate,  which  would  give  rational  encouragement 
for  you  to  foster,  a  portion  at  least,  of  the  chsagi-eeable 
passion,  which  it  was  in  part  my  intention  to  produce. 
But  ten  months  hence,  your  envy  or  your  sympathy 
would  be  as  useless  as  a  passion  spent  upon  the  dead. 
Not  only  does  truth,  in  these  long  intervals,  unessence 
herself,  but  (what  is  harder)  one  cannot  venture  a 
crude  fiction,  for  the  fear  that  it  may  ripen  into  a  truth 
upon  the  voyage.      What  a  wild  improbable  banter 

I  put  upon  you  some   three  years  since of  Will 

Weatherall  having  married  a  servant-maid  !  I  remem- 
ber gravely  consulting  you  how  we  were  to  receive  her, 
—  for  Will's  wife  was  in  no  case  to  be  rejected;  and 
your  no  less  serious  replication  in  the  matter ;  how 
tenderly  you  advised  an  abstemious  introduction  of  lit- 
erary topics  before  the  lady,  with  a  caution  not  to  be 
too  forward  in  bringing  on  the  carpet  matters  more 
within  the  sphere  of  her  intelligence ;  your  deliberate 
judgment,  or  rather  wise  suspension  of  sentence,  how 
far  jacks,  and  spits,  and  mops  could  with  propriety  be 
introduced  as  subjects ;  whether  the  conscious  avoiding 
of  all  such  matters  in  discourse  would  not  have  a  worse 
look  than  the  taking  of  them  casually  in  our  way ;  in 
what  manner  we  should  carry  ourselves  to  our  maid 
Becky,  Mrs.  William  Weatherall  being  by ;  whether 
we  should  show  more  delicacy,  and  a  truer  sense  of 
respect  for  Will's  wife,  by  treating  Becky  with  our 
customary  chiding  before  her,  or  by  an  unusual  defer- 
ential civility  paid  to  Becky  as  to  a  person  of  great 
worth,  but  thrown  by  the  caprice  of  fate  into  a  humble 
station.  There  were  difficulties,  I  remember,  on  both 
sides,  wliich  you  did  me  the  favor  to  state  with  the  pre« 


DISTANT   CORRESPONDENTS.  179 

cision  of  a  lawyer,  united  to  the  tenderness  of  a  friend. 
I  laughed  in  my  sleeve  at  your  solemn  pleadings,  when 
lo !  while  I  was  valuing  myself  upon  this  flam  put  upon 
you  in  New  South  Wales,  the  devil  in  England,  jeal- 
ous possibly  of  any  lie-children  not  his  own,  or  working 
after  my  copy,  has  actually  instigated  our  ft-iend  (not 
three  days  since)  to  the  commission  of  a  matrimony, 
which  I  had  only  conjm-ed  up  for  your  diversion. 
William  Weatherall  has  married  Mrs.  Cotterel's  maid. 
But  to  take  it  in  its  truest  sense,  you  will  see,  my  dear 
F.,  that  news  from  me  must  become  history  to  you ; 
which  I  neither  profess  to  write,  nor  indeed  care  much 
for  reading.  No  person,  under  a  diviner,  can  with  any 
prospect  of  veracity  conduct  a  correspondence  at  such 
an  arm's  length.  Two  prophets,  indeed,  might  thus 
interchange  intelligence  with  effect ;  the  epoch  of  the 
writer  (Habakkuk)  falling  in  with  the  true  present 
time  of  the  receiver  (Daniel)  ;  but  then  we  are  no 
prophets. 

Then  as  to  sentiment.  It  fares  little  better  with 
that.  This  kmd  of  dish,  above  all,  requires  to  be 
served  up  hot ;  or  sent  off"  in  water-plates,  that  your 
friend  may  have  it  almost  as  warm  as  yourself.  If  it 
have  time  to  cool,  it  is  the  most  tasteless  of  all  cold 
meats.  I  have  often  smiled  at  a  conceit  of  the  late 
Lord  C  It  seems  that,  travelling  somewhere  abovit 
Geneva,  he  came  to  some  pretty  green  spot,  or  nook, 
where  a  willow,  or  something  hung  so  fantastically  and 
invitingly  over  a  stream  —  was  it  ?  —  or  a  rock  ?  —  no 
matter,  —  but  the  stillness  and  the  repose,  after  a  weary 
journey  'tis  likely,  in  a  languid  moment  of  his  Lord- 
ship's hot  restless  life,  so  took  his  fiincy  that  he  could 
imagine  no  place  so  proper,  in  the  event  of  his  death, 


180  DISTANT   CORRESPONDENTS. 

to  lay  his  bones  in.  This  was  all  very  natural  and  ex- 
cusable as  a  sentiment,  and  shoAvs  his  character  in  a 
very  pleasing  light.  But  when  from  a  passing  senti- 
ment it  came  to  be  an  act ;  and  when,  by  a  positive 
testamentary  disposal,  his  remains  were  actually  carried 
all  that  way  from  England  ;  who  was  there,  some 
desperate  sentimentalists  excepted,  that  did  not  ask  the 
question.  Why  could  not  his  Lordship  have  found  a 
spot  as  solitaiy,  a  nook  as  romantic,  a  tree  as  green  and 
pendent,  with  a  stream  as  emblematic  to  his  purpose^ 
in  Surrey,  in  Dorset,  or  in  Devon  ?  Conceive  the  sen 
timent  boai'ded  up,  freighted,  entered  at  the  Custon. 
House  (startling  the  tidewaiters  with  the  novelty), 
hoisted  into  a  ship.  Conceive  it  pawed  about  and 
handled  between  the  rude  jests  of  tarpaulin  ruffians,  — 
a  tliino;  of  its  delicate  texture,  —  the  salt  bilge  wetting 
it  till  it  became  as  vapid  as  a  damaged  lustring.  Sup- 
pose it  in  material  danger  (mariners  have  some  super- 
stition about  sentiments)  of  being  tossed  over  in  a  fresh 
gale  to  some  propitiatory  shark  (spirit  of  Saint  Goth- 
ard,  save  us  from  a  quietus  so  foreign  to  the  deviser's 
pui'pose !)  but  it  has  happily  evaded  a  fishy  consumma- 
tion. Trace  it  then  to  its  lucky  landing  —  at  Lyons 
shall  we  say?  —  I  have  not  the  map  before  me — jostled 
upon  four  men's  shoulders  —  baiting  at  this  town  — 
stopping  to  refresh  at  t'other  village  —  waiting  a  pass- 
port here,  a  license  there ;  the  sanction  of  the  magis- 
tracy in  this  district,  the  concurrence  of  the  ecclesiastics 
in  that  canton ;  till  at  length  it  arrives  at  its  destina- 
tion, tired  out  and  jaded,  from  a  brisk  sentiment,  into 
a  feature  of  silly  pride  or  tawdry  senseless  affectation. 
How  few  sentiments,  my  dear  F.,  I  am  afraid  we  can 
set  down,  in  the  sailor's  plu'ase,  as  quite  sea-worthy. 


riSTANT  CORRESPONDENTS.  181 

Lastly,  as  to  the  agreeable  levities,  which,  though 
contemptible  in  bulk,  are  the  twinkling  corpuscula 
which  should  irradiate  a  right  friendly  epistle,  —  your 
puns  and  small  jests  are,  I  apprehend,  extremely  cir- 
cumscribed in  their  sphere  of  action.  They  are  so 
far  fi'om  a  capacity  of  being  packed  up  and  sent  be- 
yond sea,  they  will  scarce  endure  to  be  transported  by 
hand  from  this  room  to  the  next.  Their  vio;or  ia 
as  the  instant  of  their  birth.  Their  nutriment  for 
their  brief  existence  is  the  intellectual  atmosphere  of 
the  by-standers ;  or  this  last  is  the  fine  slime  of  Nilus 
—  the  melior  lutus  —  whose  maternal  recipiency  is  as 
necessary  as  the  sol  pater  to  their  equivocal  generation. 
A  pun  hath  a  hearty  kind  of  present  ear-kissing  smack 
with  it ;  you  can  no  more  transmit  it  in  its  pristine 
flavor,  than  you  can  send  a  kiss.  Have  you  not  tried 
in  some  mstances  to  palm  off  a  yesterday's  pun  upon  a 
gentleman,  and  has  it  answered  ?  Not  but  it  was  new 
to  his  hearing,  but  it  did  not  seem  to  come  new  from 
you.  It  did  not  hitch  in.  It  was  like  picking  up  at  a 
village  alehouse  a  two-days'-old  newspaper.  You  have 
not  seen  it  before,  but  you  resent  the  stale  thing  as  an 
affi'ont.  This  sort  of  merchandise  above  all  requii'es  a 
quick  return.  A  pun,  and  its  recognitory  laugh,  must 
be  coinstantaneous.  The  one  is  the  brisk  lightning, 
the  other  the  fierce  thunder.  A  moment's  interval, 
and  the  link  is  snapped.  A  pun  is  reflected  from  a 
friend's  face  as  from  a  mirror.  Who  would  consult  his 
sweet  visnomy,  if  the  polished  surface  were  two  or 
three  minutes  (not  to  speak  of  twelve  months,  my 
dear  F.)  in  giving  back  its  copy  ? 

I  cannot  image  to  myself  whereabout  you  are. 
When  I  try  to  fix   it,  Peter  Wilkins's   island   comea 


182  DISTANT   CORRESPONDENTS. 

across  me.  Sometimes  you  seem  to  be  in  the  Sadet 
of  Thieves.  I  see  Diogenes  prying  among  you  with 
his  perpetual  fruitless  lantern.  What  must  you  be 
willing  by  this  time  to  give  for  the  sight  of  an  honest 
man  !  You  must  almost  have  forgotten  how  we  look. 
And  tell  me,  what  your  Sydneyites  do  ?  are  they 
th  .  .  V  .  ng  all  day  long  ?  Merciful  heaven  !  what 
property  can  stand  against  such  a  depredation !  The 
kangaroos  —  your  Aborigines  —  do  they  keep  their 
primitive  simplicity  un-Europe-tainted,  with  those  ht- 
tle  short  fore  puds,  looking  like  a  lesson  framed  by 
nature  to  the  pickpocket !  Marry,  for  diving  into 
fobs  they  are  rather  lamely  provided,  a  priori;  but 
if  the  hue-and-cry  were  once  up,  they  would  show 
as  fair  a  pair  of  hind-shifters  as  the  expertest  loco- 
motor in  the  colony.  We  hear  the  most  improb- 
able tales  at  this  distance.  Pray,  is  it  true  that 
the  young  Spartans  among  you  are  born  with  six 
fingers,  which  spoils  their  scanning?  It  must  look 
very  odd ;  but  use  reconciles.  For  their  scansion,  it 
is  less  to  be  regretted,  for  if  they  take  it  into  their 
heads  to  be  poets,  it  is  odds  but  they  turn  out,  the 
greater  part  of  them,  vile  plagiarists.  Is  there  much 
difference  to  see,  too,  between  the  son  of  a  th  .  .  f, 
and  the  grandson  ?  or  where  does  the  taint  stop  ?  Do 
you  bleach  in  three  or  in  four  generations  ?  I  have 
many  questions  to  put,  but  ten  Delphic  voyages  can 
be  made  in  a  shorter  time  than  it  will  take  to  satisfy 
my  scruples.  Do  you  grow  your  own  hemp  ?  What 
is  your  staple  trade,  —  exclusive  of  the  national  pro- 
fession, I  mean  ?  Your  locksmiths,  I  take  it,  are  some 
o£  your  great  capitalists. 

I   am    insensibly  chatting   to   you   as   familiarly  as 


DISTA2^T    CORRESPONDENTS.  183 

when  we  used  to  exchange  good-moiTOWs  out  of  our 
old  contiguous  windows,  in  pump-famed  Hare  Court 
in  the  Temple.  Why  did  you  ever  leave  that  quiet 
comer  ?  Why  did  I  ?  —  with  its  complement  of  four 
poor  elms,  from  whose  smoke-dyed  barks,  the  theme 
of  jestmg  ruralists,  I  picked  ray  first  lady-birds  !  My 
heart  is  as  dry  as  that  spring  sometimes  proves  in  a 
thirsty  August,  when  I  revert  to  the  space  that  is 
between  us ;  a  length  of  passage  enough  to  render 
obsolete  the  phrases  of  our  English  letters  before  they 
can  reach  you.  But  while  I  talk,  I  think  you  hear 
me,  —  thoughts  dallying  with  vain  surmise,  — 

Aye  me!  while  thee  the  seas  and  sounding  shores 
Hold  far  away. 

Come  back,  before  I  am  grown  into  a  very  old 
man,  so  as  you  shall  hardly  know  me.  Come,  before 
Bridget  walks  on  crutches.  Girls  whom  you  left 
children  have  become  sage  matrons  while  you  are 
tarrying  there.  The  blooming  Miss  W — r  (you  re- 
member Sally  W — r)  called  upon  us  yesterday,  an 
aged  crone.  Folks,  Avhom  you  knew,  die  off  every 
year.  Formerly,  I  thought  that  death  was  wearing 
out,  —  I  stood  ramparted  about  with  so  many  healthy 
friends.  The  departure  of  J.  W.,  two  springs  back, 
corrected  my  delusion.  Since  then  the  old  divorcer 
has  been  busy.  If  you  do  not  make  haste  to  return, 
there  will  be  little  left  to  gi-eet  you,  of  me,  or  mine. 


184  THE  PRAISE   OF   CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS. 


THE   PRAISE   OF   CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS. 

I  LIKE  to  meet  a  sweep  —  understand  me  —  not  a 
grown  sweeper,  —  old  chimney-sweepers  are  by  no 
means  attractive,  —  but  one  of  those  tender  novices, 
bloomincT  throuD-h  their  first  nioritude,  the  maternal 
washings  not  quite  effaced  from  the  cheek,  —  such  as 
come  forth  with  the  dawn,  or  somewhat  earlier,  with 
their  little  professional  notes  sounding  like  the  peep  peep 
of  a  young  sparrow  ;  or  liker  to  the  matin  lark  should 
I  pronounce  them,  in  their  aerial  ascents  not  seldom 
anticipating  the  sunrise  ? 

I  have  a  kindly  yearning  towards  these  dim  specks 

—  poor  blots  —  innocent  blacknesses  — 

I  reverence  these  young  Africans  of  our  own  growth 

—  these  almost  clergy  unps,  who  sport  their  cloth 
without  assumption ;  and  from  their  little  pulpits,  (the 
tops  of  chimneys,)  in  the  nipping  air  of  a  December 
morning,  preach  a  lesson  of  patience  to  mankind. 

When  a  child,  what  a  mysterious  pleasure  it  was  to 
witness  their  operation  !  to  see  a  chit  no  bigger  than 
one's  self,  enter,  one  knew  not  by  what  process,  into 
what  seemed  the  fauces  Averni,  —  to  pursue  him  in 
imagination,  as  he  went  sounding  on  through  so  many 
dark  stifling  caverns,  horrid  shades  !  —  to  shudder  with 
the  idea  that  "  now,  surely,  he  must  be  lost  forever !  " 
—  to  revive  at  heanno;  his  feeble  shout  of  discovered 
daylight,  —  and  then  (O  fulness  of  delight !)  running 
out  of  doors,  to  come  just  in  time  to  see  the  sable 
phenomenon  emerge  in  safety,  the  brandished  weapon 
of  his  art  victorious  like  some  flas;  waved  over  a  con- 


THE   PRAISE   OF   CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS.  185 

quered  citadel !  I  seem  to  remember  having  been 
told  that  a  bad  sweep  was  once  left  in  a  stack  with  his 
brush,  to  indicate  which  way  the  wind  blew.  It  was 
an  awful  spectacle,  certainly  ;  not  much  unlike  the  old 
stage  direction  in  Macbeth,  where  the  "  Apparition  of 
a  child  crowned,  with  a  tree  in  his  hand,  rises." 

Reader,  if  thou  meetest  one  of  these  small  gentry  m 
tliy  early  rambles,  it  is  good  to  give  him  a  penny.  It 
is  better  to  give  him  twopence.  If  it  be  starving 
weather,  and  to  the  proper  troubles  of  his  hard  occu- 
pation, a  pair  of  kibed  heels  (no  unusual  accompani- 
ment) be  superadded,  the  demand  on  thy  humanity 
will  surely  rise  to  a  tester. 

There  is  a  composition,  the  groundwork  of  which 
I  have  understood  to  be  the  sweet  wood  yclept  sassa- 
fras. This  wood,  boiled  down  to  a  kind  of  tea,  and 
tempered  with  an  infusion  of  milk  and  sugar,  hath  to 
some  tastes  a  delicacy  beyond  the  China  luxury.  I 
know  not  how  thy  palate  may  relish  it ;  for  myself, 
with  every  deference  to  the  judicious  Mr.  Read,  who 
hath  time  out  of  mind  kept  open  a  shop  (the  only  one 
he  avers  in  London)  for  the  vending  of  this  "  whole- 
some and  pleasant  beverage,"  on  the  south  side  of 
Fleet  Street,  as  thou  approachest  Bridge  Street  —  the 
only  Salopian  house  —  I  have  never  yet  ventured  to  dip 
my  own  particular  lip  in  a  basin  of  his  commended 
ingredients  —  a  cautious  premonition  to  the  olfactories 
constantly  whispering  to  me,  that  my  stomach  must 
infallibly,  with  all  due  courtesy,  decline  it.  Yet  I  have 
seen  palates,  otherwise  not  uninstructed  in  dietetical 
elegancies,  sup  it  up  with  avidity. 

I  know  not  by  what  particular  conformation  of  the 
organ  it  happens,  but  I  have  always  found  that  this 


186  THE  PRAISE   OF   CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS. 

composition  is  surprisingly  gratifying  to  tlie  palate  of  a 
young  chimney-sweeper,  —  whether  the  oily  particles 
(sassafras  is  slightly  oleaginous)  do  attenuate  and 
soften  the  fuliginous  concretions,  which  are  sometimes 
found  (in  dissections)  to  adhere  to  the  roof  of  the 
mouth  in  these  unfledged  practitioners ;  or  whether 
Nature,  sensible  that  she  had  mingled  too  much  of 
bitter  wood  in  the  lot  of  these  raw  victims,  caused  to 
grow  out  of  the  earth  her  sassafras  for  a  sweet  lenitive ; 

—  but  so  it  is,  that  no  possible  taste  or  odor  to  the 
senses  of  a  young  chimney-sweeper  can  convey  a  deli- 
cate excitement  comparable  to  this  mixture.  Being 
penniless,  they  will  yet  hang  their  black  heads  over 
the  ascending  steam,  to  gratify  one  sense  if  possible, 
"seemingly  no  less  pleased  than  those  domestic  animals 

—  cats  —  when  they  purr  over  a  new-found  sprig  of 
valerian.  There  is  something  more  in  these  sympathies 
-uhan  philosophy  can  inculcate. 

Now  albeit  Mr.  Read  boasteth,  not  without  reason, 
that  his  is  the  only  Salopian  house  ;  yet  be  it  known  to 
thee,  reader,  —  if  thou  art  one  who  keepest  what  are 
called  good  hours,  thou  art  haply  ignorant  of  the  fact, 

—  he  hath  a  race  of  industrious  imitators,  who  from 
stalls,  and  under  open  sky,  dispense  the  same  savoiy 
mess  to  humbler  customers,  at  that  dead  time  of  the 
dawn,  when  (as  extremes  meet)  the  rake,  reeling  home 
from  his  midnight  cups,  and  the  hard-handed  artisan 
leaving  his  bed  to  resume  the  premature  labors  of  the 
day,  jostle,  not  unfrequently  to  the  manifest  disconcei-t- 
ing  of  the  former,  for  the  honors  of  the  pavement.  It 
is  the  time  when,  in  summer,  between  the  expired  and 
the  not  yet  relumined  kitchen-fires,  the  kennels  of 
our  fair  metropolis  give  forth   their  least  satisfactory 


THE   PRAISE   OF  CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS.  187 

odors.  The  rake,  wlio  wishetli  to  dissipate  his  o'er- 
night  vapors  in  more  grateful  coffee,  curses  the  unge- 
nial  fume  as  he  passeth ;  but  the  artisan  stops  to  taste, 
and  blesses  the  fi-agrant  breakfast. 

This  is  salooj)  —  the  precocious  herb-woman's  darling, 
—  the  delight  of  the  early  gardener,  who  transports  his 
smoking  cabbages  by  break  of  day  from  Hammersmith 
to  Covent  Garden's  famed  piazzas,  —  the  delight, 
and  oh  !  I  fear,  too  often  the  envy,  of  the  unpennied 
sweep.  Him  shouldst  thou  haply  encounter,  with  his 
dim  visage  pendent  over  the  grateful  steam,  regale  him 
with  a  sumptuous  basin  (it  will  cost  thee  but  three 
half-pennies)  and  a  slice  of  delicate  bread  and  butter 
(an  added  half-penny)  —  so  may  thy  culinary  fires, 
eased  of  the  o'ercharged  secretions  from  thy  worse- 
placed  hospitalities,  curl  up  a  lighter  volume  to  the 
welkin,  —  so  may  the  descending  soot  never  taint  thy 
costly  well-ingredienced  soups,  —  nor  the  odious  cry, 
quick-reaching  from  street  to  street,  of  the  fired  cliim- 
ney^  invite  the  rattling  engines  from  ten  adjacent  par- 
ishes, to  disturb  for  a  casual  scintillation  thy  peace  and 
pocket ! 

I  am  by  nature  extremely  susceptible  of  street 
aflfi'onts  ;  the  jeers  and  taunts  of  the  populace  ;  the 
lowbred  triumph  they  display  over  the  casual  trip,  or 
splashed  stocking,  of  a  gentleman.  Yet  can  I  endure 
the  jocularity  of  a  young  sweep  with  something  more 
than  forgiveness.  In  the  last  winter  but  one,  pacing 
along  Cheapside  with  my  accustomed  precipitation 
when  I  walk  westward,  a  treacherous  slide  brought 
me  upon  my  back  in  an  instant.  I  scrambled  up  with 
pain  and  shame  enough,  —  yet  outwardly  ti-j'ing  to 
face  it  down,  as  if  nothing  had  happened,  —  when  the 


188  THE  PRAISE   OF   CHIMNEY-SWEEPEKS. 

roguish  grin  of  one  of  these  young  wits  encountered 
me.  There  he  stood,  pointing  me  out  witli  his  dusky 
finger  to  the  mob,  and  to  a  poor  woman  (I  suppose  his 
mother)  in  particular,  till  the  tears  for  the  exquisiteness 
of  the  flin  (so  he  thought  it)  worked  themselves  out 
at  the  corners  of  his  poor  red  eyes,  red  from  many 
a  previous  weeping,  and  soot-mflamed,  yet  twinkling 
through  all  with  such  a  joy,  snatched  out  of  desolation, 

that  Hogarth but  Hogarth  has  got  him  already 

(how  could  he  miss  him  ?)  in  the  March  to  Finchley, 
grinning  at  the  pieman,  —  there  he  stood,  as  he  stands 
in  the  picture,  irremovable,  as  if  the  jest  was  to  last 
forever,  —  with  such  a  maximum  of  glee,  and  minimum 
of  mischief,  in  his  mirth,  —  for  the  grin  of  a  genuine 
sweep  hath  absolutely  no  malice  in  it,  —  that  I  could 
have  been  content,  if  the  honor  of  a  gentleman  might 
endure  it,  to  have  remained  his  butt  and  his  mockery 
till  michiight. 

I  am  by  theory  obdurate  to  the  seductiveness  of  what 
are  called  a  fine  set  of  teeth.  Every  pair  of  rosy  lips 
(the  ladies  must  pardon  me)  is  a  casket  presumably 
holding  such  jewels ;  but,  methinks,  they  should  take 
leave  to  "  air  "  them  as  frugally  as  possible.  The  fine 
lady,  or  fine  gentleman,  who  show  me  their  teeth,  show 
me  bones.  Yet  must  I  confess,  that  from  the  mouth  of 
a  trae  sweep  a  display  (even  to  ostentation)  of  those 
white  and  shining  ossifications,  strikes  me  as  an  agree- 
able anomaly  in  manners,  and  an  allowable  piece  of 
foppery.     It  is,  as  when 

A  sable  cloud 
Tunis  forth  her  silver  lining  on  the  night. 

It  is  like  some  remnant  of  gentry  not  quite  extinct ; 
a  badge   of  better   days ;   a  hint  of  nobility ;  —  and, 


THE  PRAISE   OF   CHL,INEY-S^VEEPERS.  189 

doubtless,  under  the  obscuring  darkness  and  double 
night  of  theii'  forlorn  disguiseraent,  oftentimes  lurketh 
good  blood,  and  gentle  conditions,  derived  from  lost 
ancestry,  and  a  lapsed  pedigree.  The  premature  ap- 
prenticements  of  these  tender  victims  give  but  too 
much  encouragement,  I  fear,  to  clandestine  and  almost 
infantile  abductions ;  the  seeds  of  civility  and  true 
courtesy,  so  often  discernible  in  these  young  grafts, 
(not  otherwise  to  be  accounted  for,)  plainly  hint  at 
some  forced  adoptions  ;  many  noble  Rachels,  mourning 
for  their  children,  even  in  our  days,  countenance  the 
fact ;  the  tales  of  fairy-spiriting  may  shadow  a  lament- 
able verity,  and  the  recovery  of  the  young  Montagu  be 
but  a  solitary  mstance  of  good  fortune  out  of  many 
irreparable  and  hopeless  defiliations. 

In  one  of  the  state-beds  at  Arundel  Castle,  a  few 
years  since  —  under  a  ducal  canopy  —  (that  seat  of  the 
Howards  is  an  object  of  curiosity  to  visitors,  chiefly 
for  its  beds,  in  which  the  late  duke  was  especially  a 
connoisseur)  —  encircled  with  curtains  of  delicatest 
crimson,  with  stany  coronets  inwoven  —  folded  be- 
tween a  pair  of  sheets  whiter  and  softer  than  the  lap 
where  Venus  lulled  Ascanius  —  was  discovered  by 
chance,  after  all  methods  of  search  had  failed,  at  noon- 
day, fast  asleep,  a  lost  chimney-sweeper.  The  little 
creature,  having  somehow  confounded  his  passage 
among  the  intricacies  of  those  loi'dly  chimneys,  by 
some  unknown  aperture  had  alighted  upon  this  mag- 
nificent chamber ;  and,  tired  with  his  tedious  explora- 
tions, was  unable  to  resist  the  delicious  invitement  to 
repose,  which  he  there  saw  exhibited ;  so  creeping  be- 
tween the  sheets  very  quietly,  laid  his  black  head  upon 
the  pillow,  and  slept  Uke  a  young  Howard. 


190  THE  PRAISE   OF   CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS. 

Such  is  the  account  given  to  the  visitors  at  the 
Castle.  But  I  cannot  help  seeming  to  perceive  a  con- 
firmation of  what  I  have  just  hinted  at  in  this  story. 
A  high  instinct  was  at  work  in  the  case,  or  I  am  mis- 
taken. Is  it  probable  that  a  poor  child  of  that  descrip- 
tion, with  whatever  weariness  he  might  be  visited, 
would  have  ventured,  under  such  a  penalty  as  he 
would  be  taught  to  expect,  to  uncover  the  sheets  of  a 
duke's  bed,  and  deliberately  to  lay  himself  down  be- 
tween them,  when  the  rug,  or  the  carpet,  presented  an 
obvious  couch,  still  far  above  his  pretensions,  —  is  this 
probable,  I  would  ask,  if  the  great  power  of  nature, 
which  I  contend  for,  had  not  been  manifested  within 
him,  prompting  to  the  adventure  ?  Doubtless  this 
young  nobleman  (for  such  my  mind  misgives  me  that 
he  must  be)  was  allured  by  some  memory,  not  amount- 
ing to  full  consciousness,  of  his  condition  in  infancy, 
when  he  was  used  to  be  lapped  by  his  mother,  or  his 
nurse,  in  just  such  sheets  as  he  there  found,  into  which 
he  was  now  but  creej^ng  back  as  into  his  proper  ineiO' 
nabula^  and  resting-place.  By  no  other  theory  than  by 
'this  sentiment  of  a  preexistent  state  (as  I  may  call  it), 
can  I  explain  a  deed  so  venturous,  and,  indeed,  upon 
any  other  system  so  indecorous,  in  this  tender,  but  un- 
seasonable, sleeper. 

My  pleasant  friend  Jem  White  was  so  impressed 
with  a  belief  of  metamorphoses  lilce  this  frequently 
taking  place,  that  in  some  sort  to  reverse  the  wrongs 
of  fortune  in  these  poor  changelings,  he  instituted  an 
annual  feast  of  chimney-sweepers,  at  which  it  was  his 
pleasure  to  officiate  as  host  and  waiter.  It  was  a 
solemn  supper  held  in  Smithfield,  upon  the  yearly 
return  of  the  fair  of  St.   Bartholomew.     Cards  were 


THE  PRATSE   OF   CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS.  191 

issued  a  week  before  to  the  master-sweeps  in  and 
about  the  metropohs,  confining  the  invitation  to  their 
younger  fry.  Now  and  then  an  elderly  stripling  would 
get  in  among  us,  and  be  good-naturedly  winked  at ; 
but  our  main  body  were  infantry.  One  unfortunate 
wight,  indeed,  who,  relying  upon  his  dusky  suit,  liad 
intruded  himself  into  our  party,  but  by  tokens  was 
providentially  discovered  in  time  to  be  no  chimney- 
sweeper, (all  is  not  soot  which  looks  so,)  was  quoited 
out  of  the  presence  with  universal  mdignation,  as  not 
having  on  the  weddmg  garment ;  but  in  general  the 
greatest  harmony  prevailed.  The  place  chosen  was  a 
convenient  spot  among  the  pens,  at  the  north  side  of 
the  fair,  not  so  far  distant  as  to  be  impervious  to  the 
agreeable  hubbub  of  that  vanity ;  but  remote  enough 
not  to  be  obvious  to  the  interruption  of  every  gaping 
spectator  in  it.  The  guests  assembled  about  seven.  In 
those  little  temporary  parlors  three  tables  were  spread 
with  napery,  not  so  fine  as  substantial,  and  at  every 
board  a  comely  hostess  presided  with  her  pan  of  hissing 
sausages.  The  nostrils  of  the  young  rogues  dilated  at 
the  savor.  James  White,  as  head  waiter,  had  charge 
of  the  first  table  ;  and  myself,  with  our  tnisty  com- 
panion BiGOD,  ordinarily  ministered  to  the  other  two. 
There  was  clambering  and  jostling,  you  may  be  sure, 
who  should  get  at  the  first  table,  —  for  Rochester  in  his 
maddest  days  could  not  have  done  the  humors  of  the 
scene  with  more  spii'it  than  my  friend.  After  some 
general  expression  of  thanks  for  the  honor  the  company 
had  done  him,  his  inaugural  ceremony  was  to  clasp  the 
greasy  waist  of  old  dame  Ursula  (the  fattest  of  the 
three),  that  stood  frying  and  fretting,  half-blessing, 
half-cursing  "  the  gentleman,"  and  imprint   upon  her 


192  THE  PRAISE   OF   CfflMNEY-S WEEPERS. 

chaste  lips  a  tender  salute,  whereat  the  universal  host 
would  set  up  a  shout  that  tore  the  concave,  while 
hundreds  of  grinnuig  teeth  startled  the  night  with 
their  brightness.  O  it  was  a  pleasure  to  see  the  sable 
younkers  lick  in  the  unctuous  meat,  with  his  more 
unctuous  sayings,  —  how  he  would  fit  the  titbits  to 
the  puny  mouths,  reserving  the  lengthier  links  for  the 
seniors,  — how  he  would  intercept  a  morsel  even  in  the 
jaws  of  some  young  desperado,  declaring  it  "  must  to 
the  pan  again  to  be  browned,  for  it  was  not  fit  for  a 
gentleman's  eating,"  —  how  he  would  recommend  this 
slice  of  white  bread,  or  that  piece  of  kissing-crust,  to 
a  tender  juvenile,  advising  them  all  to  have  a  care  of 
cracking  their  teeth,  which  were  their  best  patrimony, 
—  how  genteelly  he  would  deal  about  the  small  ale,  as 
if  it  were  wine,  naming  the  brewer,  and  protesting,  if 
it  were  not  good,  he  should  lose  their  custom  ;  with  a 
special  recommendation  to  wipe  the  lip  before  drink- 
ins;.  Then  we  had  our  toasts  —  "  The  Kino- !" — "  the 
Cloth,"  —  which,  whether  they  understood  or  not,  was 
equally  diverting  and  flattering ;  —  and  for  a  crowning 
sentiment,  which  never  failed,  "  May  the  Brush  super- 
sede the  Laurel !  "  All  these,  and  fifty  other  fancies, 
which  were  rather  felt  than  comprehended  by  his 
guests,  would  he  utter,  standing  upon  tables,  and  pref- 
acing every  sentiment  with  a  "  Gentlemen,  give  me 
leave  to  propose  so  and  so,"  which  was  a  prodigious 
comfort  to  those  young  orphans ;  every  now  and  then 
stuffing  into  his  mouth  (for  it  did  not  do  to  be  squeam- 
ish on  these  occasions)  indiscriminate  pieces  of  those 
reeking  sausages,  which  pleased  them  miglitily,  and 
was  the  savoriest  part,  you  may  believe,  of  the  enter- 
tainment. 


A  COMPLAINT  OF  THE  DECAY  OF  BEGGARS.   193 

Golden  lads  and  lasses  mast. 

As  chimney-sweepers,  come  to  dust.  — 

James  White  is  extinct,  and  with  him  these  suppers 
have  long  ceased.  He  carried  away  with  him  half  the 
fiin  of  the  world  when  he  died  —  of  my  world  at  least. 
His  old  clients  look  for  him  among  the  pens  ;  and, 
missing  him,  reproach  the  altered  feast  of  St.  Bartholo- 
mew, and  the  glory  of  Smithfield  departed  forever 


A  COMPLAINT  OF  THE  DECAY  OF  BEGGARS 

IN  THE  METROPOLIS. 

The  all-sweeping  besom  of  societarian  reformation 
—  your  only  modern  Alcides's  club  to  rid  the  time  of 
its  abuses  —  is  uplift  with  many-handed  sway  to  extir- 
pate the  last  fluttering  tatters  of  the  bugbear  Men- 
dicity from  the  metropolis.  Scrips,  wallets,  bags,  — 
staves,  dogs,  and  crutches,  —  the  whole  mendicant 
fraternity  with  all  their  baggage,  are  fast  posting  out  * 
of  the  purlieus  of  this  eleventh  persecution.  From  the 
crowded  crossing,  from  the  comers  of  streets  and  turn- 
ings of  alleys,  the  partmg  Genius  of  Beggary  is  "  with 
sighing  sent." 

I  do  not  approve  of  this  wholesale  going  to  work,  this 
impertment  crusado,  or  helium  ad  exterminationem^  pro- 
claimed against  a  species.  Much  good  might  be  sucked 
from  these  Beo-sars. 

They  were  the  oldest  and  the  honorablest  form  of 
pauperism.      Theb  appeals  were   to  our  common  na 

VOL..   III.  13 


194   A  COMPLAINT  OF  THE  DECAY  OF  BEGGARS. 

ture;  less  revolting  to  an  ingenuous  mind  than  to 
be  a  suppliant  to  the  particular  humors  or  caprice  of 
any  fellow-'^reature,  or  set  of  fellow-creatures,  paro- 
chial or  societarian.  Theirs  were  the  only  rates  unin- 
vidious  in  the  levy,  ungrudged  in  the  assessment. 

There  was  a  dignity  springing  fi*om  the  very  depth 
of  their  desolation ;  as  to  be  naked  is  to  be  so  much 
nearer  to  the  being  a  man,  than  to  go  in  livery. 

The  greatest  spirits  have  felt  this  in  their  revei'ses ; 
and  when  Dionysius  from  king  turned  schoolmaster, 
do  we  feel  anything  towards  liim  but  contempt? 
Could  Vandyke  have  made  a  picture  of  him,  swaying 
a  ferula  for  a  sceptre,  which  would  have  affected  our 
minds  with  the  same  heroic  pity,  the  same  compassion- 
ate admiration,  with  which  we  regard  his  Belisarius 
beffo-ins:  for  an  oholum  f  Would  the  moral  have  been 
more  graceful,  more  pathetic  ? 

The  Blind  Beggar  in  the  legend  —  the  father  of 
pretty  Bessy  —  whose  story  doggerel  rhymes  and  ale- 
house signs  cannot  so  degrade  or  attenuate,  but  that 
some  sparks  of  a  lustrous  spirit  will  shine  through  the 
disguisements,  —  this  noble  Earl  of  Cornwall  (as  indeed 
he  was)  and  memorable  sport  of  fortmie,  fleeing  fi-om 
the  unjust  sentence  of  his  hege  lord,  stript  of  all,  and 
seated  on  the  flowering  green  of  Bethnal,  with  liis  more 
fi-esh  and  springing  daughter  by  his  side,  illumining  his 
t-ags  and  his  beggary,  —  would  the  cliild  and  parent 
have  cut  a  better  figm-e,  doing  the  honors  of  a  counter, 
or  expiating  their  fallen  condition  upon  the  three-foot 
eminence  of  some  sempstering  shopboard  ? 

lu  tale  or  histoiy  your  Beggar  is  ever  the  just  anti- 
pode  to  your  King.  The  poets  and  romancical  writers 
(as  dear  Margaret  Newcastle  would  call  them),  when 


A  COMPLAINT  OF  THE  DECAY  OF  BEGGARS.   195 

they  would  most  sharply  and  feelingly  paint  a  reverse 
of  fortune,  never  stop  till  they  have  brought  down  their 
hero  in  good  earnest  to  rags  and  the  wallet.  The 
depth  of  the  descent  illustrates  the  height  he  falls  from. 
There  is  no  medium  which  can  be  presented  to  the 
imagination  without  offence.  There  is  no  breaking 
the  fall.  Lear,  thrown  from  his  palace,  must  divest 
him  of  his  garments,  till  he  answer  "  mere  nature ;  " 
and  Cresseid,  fallen  from  a  prince's  love,  must  extend 
her  pale  arms,  pale  with  other  whiteness  than  of  beauty, 
supplicating  lazar  alms  with  bell  and  clap-dish. 

The  Lucian  wits  knew  this  very  well ;  and,  with  a 
converse  policy,  when  they  would  express  scorn  of 
greatness  without  the  pity,  they  show  us  an  Alexander 
in  the  shades  cobbhng  shoes,  or  a  Semiramis  getting  up 
foul  hnen. 

How  would  it  sound  in  song,  that  a  great  monarch 
had  declined  his  affections  upon  the  daughter  of  a 
baker  1  yet  do  we  feel  the  imagination  at  all  violated 
when  we  read  the  "  true  ballad,"  where  King  Cophe- 
tua  woos  the  beggar  maid  ? 

Pauperism,  pauper,  poor  man,  are  expressions  of  pity, 
but  pity  alloyed  with  contempt.  No  one  properly  con- 
temns a  beggar.  Poverty  is  a  comparative  thing,  and 
each  degree  of  it  is  mocked  by  its  "  neighbor  grice." 
Its  poor  rents  and  comings-in  are  soon  summed  up  and 
told.  Its  pretences  to  property  are  almost  ludicrous. 
Its  pitiful  attempts  to  save  excite  a  smile.  Every  scorn- 
ful companion  can  weigh  his  trifle-bigger  purse  against 
it.  Poor  man  reproaches  poor  man  in  the  streets  with 
impolitic  mention  of  his  condition,  his  own  being  a 
shade  better,  while  the  rich  pass  by  and  jeer  at  both. 
Nrt  rascally  comparative  insults  a  Beggar,  or  thinks  of 


196       A  COMPLAINT   OF  THE  DECAY   OF   BEGGARS 

weighing  purses  with  him.  He  is  not  in  the  scale  of 
comparison.  He  is  not  under  the  measure  of  property. 
He  confessedly  hath  none,  any  more  than  a  dog  or  a 
sheep.  No  one  twitteth  him  with  ostentation  above  his 
means.  No  one  accuses  him  of  pride,  or  upbraideth 
hun  with  mock  humility.  None  jostle  with  him  for  the 
wall,  or  pick  quarrels  for  precedency.  No  wealthy 
neighbor  seeketh  to  eject  him  fi'om  his  tenement.  No 
man  sues  him.  No  man  goes  to  law  with  him.  If  I 
were  not  the  independent  gentleman  that  I  am,  rather 
than  I  would  be  a  retainer  to  the  great,  a  led  captain, 
or  a  poor  relation,  I  would  choose,  out  of  the  delicacy 
and  true  greatness  of  my  mind,  to  be  a  Beggar. 

Rags,  which  are  the  reproach  of  poverty,  are  the 
Beggar's  robes,  and  graceful  insignia  of  his  profession, 
his  tenure,  his  full  dress,  the  suit  in  wliich  he  is  ex- 
pected to  show  himself  m  public.  He  is  never  out  of 
the  fasliion,  or  hmpeth  awkwardly  behind  it.  He  is 
not  required  to  put  on  court  mourning.  He  weareth 
all  colors,  fearino;  none.  His  costume  hath  undergone 
less  change  than  the  Quaker's.  He  is  the  only  man  in 
the  universe  who  is  not  obliged  to  study  appearances. 
The  ups  and  downs  of  the  world  concern  liim  no 
longer.  He  alone  continueth  in  one  stay.  The  price 
of  stock  or  land  affecteth  him  not.  The  fluctuations 
of  agricultural  or  commercial  prosperity  touch  him 
not,  or  at  worst  but  change  his  customers.  He  is  not 
expected  to  become  bail  or  surety  for  any  one.  No 
man  troubleth  him  with  questioning  his  religion  or 
politics.     He  is  the  only  free  man  in  the  universe. 

Tlie  Mendicants  of  this  great  city  were  so  many  of 
her  sights,  her  lions.  I  can  no  more  spare  them  than 
I  could  the  Cries  of  London.     No  corner  of  a  street 


A  COMPLAINT  OF  THE  DECAY  OF  BEGGARS.   197 

is  complete  without  them.  They  are  as  indispensable 
as  the  Ballad  Singer;  and  in  their  picturesque  attire 
as  ornamental  as  the  signs  of  old  London.  They  were 
the  standing  morals,  emblems,  mementos,  dial-mottoes, 
the  spital  sermons,  the  books  for  children,  the  salutary 
checks  and  pauses  to  the  high  and  rushing  tide  of 
greasy  citizenry,  — 

Look 
Upon  that  poor  and  broken  bankrupt  there. 

Above  all,  those  old  blind  Tobits-that  used  to  line  the 
wall  of  Lincoln's-Inn  Garden,  before  modem  fastid- 
iousness had  expelled  them,  casting  up  their  ruined 
orbs  to  catch  a  ray  of  pity,  and  (if  possible)  of  light, 
with  their  faithful  Dog  Guide  at  their  feet,  —  wliither 
are  they  fled  ?  or  into  what  corners,  blind  as  them- 
selves, have  they  been  driven,  out  of  the  wholesome 
air  and  sun-warmth  ?  immersed  between  four  walls,  in 
what  withering  poor-house  do  they  endure  the  penalty 
of  double  darkness,  where  the  chink  of  the  dropt  half- 
penny no  more  consoles  their  forlorn  bereavement,  far 
from  the  sound  of  the  cheerful  and  hope-stirring  tread 
of  the  passenger  ?  Where  hang  their  useless  staves  ? 
and  who  will  farm  their  dogs  ?  —  Have  the  overseers 
of  St.  L —  caused  them  to  be  shot  ?  or  were  they  tied 
up  in  sacks,  and  dropt  into  the  Thames,  at  the  sugges- 
tion of  B — ,  the  mild  rector  of ? 

Well  fare  the  soul  of  unfastidious  Vincent  Bourne, 
most  classical,  and  at  the  same  time,  most  English  of 
the  Latinists  !  —  who  has  treated  of  this  human  and 
qua«irupedal  alliance,  this  dog  and  man  fi'iendship,  in 
the  sweetest  of  his  poems,  the  E]jitaphiam  in  Canem^ 
or  Dog's  Epitaph.  Reader,  peruse  it ;  and  say,  if 
customary   sights,   which    could    call    up    such    gentle 


198       A  COMPLAINT   OF   THE   DECaY   OF   BEGGARS. 

poetiy  as  this,  vrere  of  a  nature  to  do  more  harm  oi 
good  to  the  moral  sense  of  the  passengers  through  the 
daily  thorouglifares  of  a  vast  and  busy  metropolis. 

Pauperis  hie  Iri  requiesco  Lyciscus,  herilis, 
Dum  vixi,  tutela  vigil  columenque  senectaB, 
Dux  caeco  fidus:  nee,  me  ducente,  solebat, 
Praetenso  hinc  atque  hine  baculo,  per  iniqua  locoram 
Incertara  explorare  viam ;  sed  fila  seeutus, 
Qui5e  dubios  regerent  passiis,  vestigia  tuta 
Fixit  inoffenso  gressu;  gelidumque  sedile 
In  nudo  nactus  saxo,  qua  prfetereuntium 
Unda  frequens  confluxit,  ibi  miserisque  tenebras 
Lamentis,  noctemque  oculis  ploravit  obortam. 
Ploravit  nee  frustra;  obolum  dedit  alter  et  alter, 
Quels  eorda  et  mentem  indiderat  natura  benignam. 
Ad  latus  interea  jaeui  sopitus  herile, 
Vel  mediis  vigil  in  somnis;  ad  berilia  jussa 
Auresque  atque  animum  arreetus,  seu  frustula  amio& 
Porrexit  sociasque  dapes,  seu  longa  diei 
Tsedia  perpessus,  reditum  sub  nocte  parabat. 
Hi  mores,  hsc  vita  fuit,  dum  fata  sinebant, 
Dum  neque  languebam  morbis,  nee  inerte  senectik; 
Quse  tandem  obrepsit,  veterique  satellite  caeeum 
Orbavit  dominum:  prisci  sed  gi-atia  fiicti 
Ne  tota  intereat,  longos  deleeta  per  anuos, 
Exiguum  hune  Irus  tumulura  de  cespite  fecit, 
Etsi  inopis,  non  ingratse,  munuscula  dextrse; 
Carmine  signavitque  brevi,  dominumque  canemqne 
Quod  memoret,  fidumque  canem  dominumque  benigmiitt. 

Poor  Irus's  faithful  wolf-dog  here  I  lie, 

That  wont  to  tend  my  old  blind  master's  steps, 

His  guide  and  guard:  nor,  while  ray  service  lasted, 

Had  he  occasion  for  that  staff,  with  which 

He  now  goes  picking  out  his  path  in  fear 

Over  the  highways  and  crossings;  but  would  plant, 

Safe  in  the  conduct  of  my  friendly  string, 

A  firm  foot  forward  still,  till  he  had  reach'd 

His  poor  seat  on  some  stone,  nigh  where  the  tide 

Of  passers-by  in  thickest  confluence  flow'd: 

To  whom  with  loud  and  passionate  laments 

From  morn  to  eve  his  dark  estate  he  wail'd. 

Nor  wail'd  to  all  in  vain:  some  here  and  there. 

The  well-disposed  and  good,  their  pennies  gaT« 


A  COMPLAINT   OF  THE  DECAY   OF   BEGGARS.       199 

I  meantime  at  his  feet  obsequious  slept; 

Not  all-asleep  iu  sleep,  but  heart  and  ear 

Prick'd  up  at  his  least  motion;  to  receive 

At  his  kind  hand  my  customary  crumbs, 

And  common  portion  in  his  feast  of  scraps; 

Or  when  night  warn'd  us  homeward,  tired  and  spent 

With  our  long  day  and  tedious  beggary. 

These  were  my  manners,  this  my  way  of  life, 
Till  age  and  slow  disease  me  overtook, 
And  sever'd  from  my  sightless  master's  side. 
But  lest  the  grace  of  so  good  deeds  should  die, 
Through  tract  of  years  in  mute  oblivion  lost. 
This  slender  tomb  of  turf  hath  Irus  reared. 
Cheap  monument  of  no  ungrudging  hand. 
And  with  short  verse  inscribed  it,  to  attest, 
In  long  and  lasting  union  to  attest. 
The  virtues  of  the  Beggar  and  his  Dog. 

These  dim  eyes  have  in  vain  explored  for  some 
months  past  a  well-known  figure,  or  part  of  the  figure 
of  a  man,  who  used  to  glide  his  comely  upper  half  over 
the  pavements  of  London,  wheehng  along  with  most 
ingenious  celerity  upon  a  machine  of  wood ;  a  spectacle 
to  natives,  to  foreigners,  and  to  children.  He  was  of  a 
robust  make,  with  a  florid  sailor-like  complexion,  and 
his  head  was  bare  to  the  storm  and  sunshine.  He  was 
a  natural  curiosity,  a  speculation  to  the  scientific,  a 
prodigy  to  the  simple.  The  infant  would  stare  at  the 
mighty  man  brought  down  to  his  own  level.  The 
common  cripple  would  despise  his  own  pusillanimity, 
viewing  the  hale  stoutness,  and  hearty  heart,  of  this 
half-limbed  giant.  Few  but  must  have  noticed  him; 
for  the  accident,  which  brought  him  low,  took  place 
during  the  riots  of  1780,  and  he  has  been  a  groundling 
so  long.  He  seemed  earthborn,  an  Antaeus,  and  to 
suck  in  fresh  vio-or  from  the  soil  which  he  neiolibored. 
He  was  a  grand  fragment ;  as  good  as  an  Elgin  marble. 
The  natm'e,  wliich  should  have  recruited  his  reft  legs 


200       A   COMPLAINT   OF   THE   DECAY   OF  BEGGARS. 

and  thighs,  was  not  lost,  but  only  retired  into  his  upper 
parts,  and  he  was  half  a  Hercules.  I  heard  a  tremen- 
dous voice  thundering  and  growling,  as  before  an  earth- 
quake, and  casting  down  my  eyes,  it  was  this  mandrake 
reviling  a  steed  that  had  started  at  his  portentous  ap- 
pearance. He  seemed  to  want  but  his  just  stature  to 
have  rent  the  offending  quadruped  in  shivers.  He  was 
as  the  mau'-part  of  a  centaur,  from  which  the  horse-half 
had  been  cloven  in  some  du'e  Lapithan  controversy. 
He  moved  on,  as  if  he  could  have  made  shift  with  yet 
half  of  the  body-portion  which  was  left  him.  The  os 
sublime  was  not  wanting ;  and  he  threw  out  yet  a  jolly 
countenance  upon  the  heavens.  Forty-and-two  years 
had  he  driven  this  out-of-door  trade ;  and  noAV  that  his 
hair  is  grizzled  in  the  service,  but  his  good  spirits  no 
way  impaired,  because  he  is  not  content  to  exchange 
his  free  air  and  exercise  for  the  restraints  of  a  poor- 
house,  he  is  expiating  his  contumacy  in  one  of  those 
houses  (ironically  christened)  of  Correction. 

Was  a  daily  spectacle  like  tliis  to  be  deemed  a  nui- 
sance, which  called  for  legal  interference  to  remove  ?  or 
not  rather  a  salutary  and  a  touching  object,  to  the  pas- 
sers-by in  a  great  city  ?  Among  her  shows,  her  muse- 
ums, and  supplies  for  ever-gaping  curiosity,  (and  what 
else  but  an  accumulation  of  sight  —  endless  sights  —  is 
a  great  city ;  or  for  what  else  is  it  desirable  ?)  was  thei'e 
not  room  for  one  Lusus  (not  Naturce^  indeed,  but) 
Accidentium  ?  What  if  in  forty-and-two  years'  going 
about,  the  man  had  scraped  together  enough  to  give  a 
portion  to  his  child,  (as  the  rumor  ran,)  of  a  few  hun- 
dreds, —  whom  had  he  injured  ?  —  Avhom  had  he  im- 
posed upon  ?  The  contributors  had  enjoyed  their  sight 
for  their  tDennies.     What  if  after  being  exposed  all  day 


A  COMPLAINT  OF  THE  DECAY  OF  BEGGARS.   201 

to  the  heats,  the  rains,  and  the  frosts  of  heaven,  —  shuf- 
fling his  ungainly  trunk  along  in  an  elaborate  and  pain- 
ful motion,  —  he  was  enabled  to  retire  at  night  to  enjoy 
himself  at  a  club  of  his  fellow  cripples  over  a  dish  of 
hot  meat  and  vegetables,  as  the  charge  was  gravely 
brought  against  him  by  a  clergyman  deposing  before  a 
House  of  Commons'  Committee,  —  was  this,  or  was  his 
truly  paternal  consideration,  which  (if  a  fact)  deserved 
a  statue  rather  than  a  whipping-post,  and  is  inconsistent 
at  least  with  the  exaggeration  of  nocturnal  orgies  which 
he  has  been  slandered  with,  —  a  reason  that  he  should 
be  deprived  of  his  chosen,  harmless,  nay,  edifying  way 
of  life,  and  be  committed  in  hoary  age  for  a  sturdy 
Tagabond  ? 

There  was  a  Yorick  once,  whom  it  would  not  have 
shamed  to  have  sat  down  at  the  cripples'  feast,  and  to 
have  thrown  in  his  benediction,  ay,  and  his  mite  too, 
for  a  companionable  symbol.  "  Age,  thou  hast  lost  thy 
breed." 

Half  of  these  stories  about  the  prodigious  fortunes 
made  by  begging  are  (I  verily  believe)  misers'  calum- 
nies. One  was  much  talked  of  in  the  public  papers 
some  time  since,  and  the  usual  charitable  inferences 
deduced.  A  clerk  in  the  bank  was  surprised  with  the 
announcement  of  a  five-hundred-pound  legacy  left  him 
by  a  person  whose  name  he  was  a  stranger  to.  It  seems 
that  in  his  daily  morning  walks  from  Peckham  (or 
some  village  thereabouts)  where  he  lived,  to  his  office, 
it  had  been  his  practice  for  the  last  twenty  years  to 
drop  his  half-penny  duly  into  the  hat  of  some  blind 
Bartimeus,  that  sat  begging  alms  by  the  way-side  in 
the  Borough.  The  good  old  beggar  recognized  his 
daily  benefactor  by  the  voice  only ;  and,  when  he  d«ed, 


202       A  COMPLAINT   OF  THE  DECAY   OF   BJiGGARs. 

left  all  tlie  amassings  of  his  alms  (that  had  been  half  a 
century  perhaps  in  the  accumulating),  to  his  old  bank 
friend.  Was  this  a  story  to  purse  up  people's  hearts, 
and  pennies,  agamst  giving  an  alms  to  the  blmd  ?  —  or 
not  rather  a  beautiful  moral  of  well-directed  charity 
on  the  one  part,  and  noble  gratitude  upon  the  other? 

I  sometimes  wish  I  had  been  that  bank  clerk. 

I  seem  to  remember  a  poor  old  grateful  kind  of  crea- 
ture, blinking,  and  looking  up  with  his  no  eyes  in  the 
sun. 

Is  it  possible  I  could  have  steeled  my  purse  against 
him? 

Perhaps  I  had  no  small  change. 

Reader,  do  not  be  frightened  at  the  hard  words,  im- 
position, imposture  —  give^  and  ask  no  questions.  Cast 
thy  bread  upon  the  waters.  Some  have  unawares  (like 
this  bank  clerk)  entertained  angels. 

Shut  not  thy  purse-strings  always  against  painted 
distress.  Act  a  charity  sometimes.  When  a  poor 
creature  (outwardly  and  visibly  such)  comes  before 
thee,  do  not  stay  to  inquire  whether  the  "  seven  small 
children,"  in  whose  name  he  implores  thy  assistance, 
have  a  veritable  existence.  Rake  not  into  the  bowels 
of  unwelcome  truth,  to  save  a  half-penny.  It  is  good 
to  believe  him.  If  he  be  not  all  that  he  pretendeth, 
give,  and  under  a  personate  father  of  a  family,  think 
(if  thou  pleasest)  that  thou  hast  relieved  an  indigent 
bachelor.  When  they  come  with  their  counterfeit 
looks,  and  mumping  tones,  tlnnk  them  players.  You 
pay  your  money  to  see  a  comedian  feign  these  things, 
wIhoIi,  concerning  these  poor  people,  thou  canst  not 
certainly  tell  whether  they  are  feigned  or  not. 


A  DISSERTATION  UPON  KOAST  PIG.  203 


A  DISSERTATION  UPON  ROAST  PIG. 

Mankind,  says  a  Chinese  manuscript,  which  my 
fiiend  M.  was  obliging  enough  to  read  and  explain  to 
me,  for  the  first  seventy  thousand  ages  ate  their  meat 
raw,  clawing  or  biting  it  from  the  living  animal,  just  as 
they  do  m  Abyssinia  to  this  day.  This  period  is  not 
obscurely  hinted  at  by  their  great  Confucius  in  the 
second  chapter  of  his  Mundane  Mutations,  where  he 
designates  a  kind  of  golden  age  by  the  term  Cho-fang, 
literally  the  Cooks'  Holiday.  The  manuscript  goes  on 
to  say,  that  the  art  of  roasting,  or  rather  broiling 
(which  I  take  to  be  the  elder  brother)  was  accidentally 
discovered  in  the  manner  following :  The  swineherd, 
Ho-ti,  having  gone  out  into  the  woods  one  morning,  as 
his  manner  was,  to  collect  mast  for  his  hogs,  left  his 
cottage  in  the  care  of  his  eldest  son,  Bo-bo,  a  great 
lubberly  boy,  who  being  fond  of  playing  with  fire,  as 
younkers  of  his  age  commonly  are,  let  some  sparks 
escape  into  a  bundle  of  straw,  which  kindling  quickly, 
spread  the  conflagration  over  every  part  of  their  poor 
mansion,  till  it  was  reduced  to  ashes.  Together  with 
the  cottage,  (a  sorry  antediluvian  makeshift  of  a  build- 
ing, you  may  think  it,)  what  was  of  much  more  im- 
portance, a  fine  fitter  of  new-farrowed  pigs,  no  less  than 
nine  in  number,  perished.  China  pigs  have  been  es- 
teemed a  luxwry  all  over  the  East,  from  the  remotest 
periods  that  we  read  of.  Bo-bo  was  in  the  utmost  con- 
sternation, as  you  may  think,  not  so  much  for  the  -sake 
of  the  tenement,  which  his  father  and  he  could  easily 
build  up  again  with  a  few  diy  branches,  and  the  labor 


204  A  DISSERTATION  UPON  ROAST  PIG. 

of  an  hour  or  two,  at  any  time,  as  for  the  loss  of  the 
pigs.  While  he  was  thinking  what  he  should  say  to 
his  father,  and  wringing  his  hands  over  the  smoking 
remnants  of  one  of  those  untimely  sufferers,  an  odor 
assailed  his  nostrils,  unlike  any  scent  which  he  had 
before  experienced.  What  could  it  proceed  from  ?  — 
not  fi'om  the  burnt  cottage,  —  he  had  smelt  that  smell 
before,  —  indeed  this  was  by  no  means  the  first  accident 
of  the  kind  which  had  occurred  through  the  negligence 
of  this  unlucky  young  firebrand.  Much  less  did  it 
resemble  that  of  any  known  herb,  weed,  or  flower.  A 
premonitory  moistening  at  the  same  time  overflowed 
his  nether  lip.  He  knew  not  what  to  think.  He  next 
stooped  down  to  feel  the  pig,  if  there  were  any  signs  of 
life  in  it.  He  burnt  his  fingers,  and  to  cool  them  he 
applied  them  in  his  booby  fashion  to  his  mouth.  Some 
of  the  crumbs  of  the  scorched  skin  had  come  away 
with  his  fingers,  and  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  (in  the 
world's  life  indeed,  for  before  him  no  man  had  known 
it)  he  tasted  —  crackling  !  Again  he  felt  and  fiimbled 
at  the  pig.  It  did  not  burn  him  so  much  now,  still  he 
licked  his  fino-ers  fi^om  a  sort  of  habit.  The  truth  at 
length  broke  into  his  slow  understanding,  that  it  was 
the  pig  that  smelt  so,  and  the  pig  that  tasted  so  deli- 
cious ;  and  surrendering  himself  up  to  the  new-born 
pleasure,  he  fell  to  tearing  up  whole  handfuls  of  the 
scorched  skin  with  the  flesh  next  it,  and  was  cramming 
it  down  his  throat  in  his  beastly  fashion,  when  his  sire 
entered  amid  the  smoking  rafters,  armed  with  retribu- 
tory  cudgel,  and  finding  how  affairs  stood,  began  to 
rain  blows  upon  the  young  rogue's  shoulders,  as  thick 
as  hailstones,  which  Bo-bo  heeded  not  any  more  than 
if  they  had  been  flies.     The  tickling  pleasure,  which  he 


A  DISSERTATION   UPON  ROAST   PIG.  205 

experienced  in  his  lower  regions,  had  rendered  him 
quite  callous  to  any  inconveniences  he  might  feel  in 
those  remote  quarters.  His  father  might  lay  on,  but 
he  could  not  beat  him  fi'om  his  pig,  till  he  had  fairly 
made  an  end  of  it,  when,  becoming  a  little  more  sen- 
sible of  his  situation,  something  like  the  following  dia- 
logue ensued. 

"  You  graceless  whelp,  what  have  you  got  there 
devouring?  Is  it  not  enough  that  you  have  burnt 
me  down  three  houses  with  your  dog's  tricks,  and  be 
hanged  to  you !  but  you  must  be  eating  fire,  and  I 
know  not  what ;  —  what  have  you  got  there,  I  say  ?  " 

"  O  father,  the  pig,  the  pig  !  do  come  and  taste  how 
nice  the  burnt  pig  eats." 

The  ears  of  Ho-ti  tingled  with  horror.  He  cursed 
his  son,  and  he  cursed  himself  that  ever  he  should  beget 
a  son  that  should  eat  burnt  pig. 

Bo-bo,  whose  scent  was  wonderfully  sharpened  since 
morning,  soon  raked  out  another  pig,  and  fairly  rend- 
ing it  asunder,  thrust  the  lesser  half  by  main  force  into 
the  fists  of  Ho-ti,  still  shouting  out,  "  Eat,  eat,  eat  the 
burnt  pig,  father,  only  taste ;  O  Lord  !  "  —  with  such- 
like barbarous  ejaculations,  cramming  all  the  while  as 
if  he  would  choke. 

Ho-ti  trembled  eveiy  joint  while  he  gi'asped  the 
abominable  thing,  wavering  whether  he  should  not 
put  his  son  to  death  for  an  unnatural  young  monster, 
when  the  crackling  scorchino;  his  fino-ers,  as  it  had  done 
his  son's  and  applying  the  same  remedy  to  them,  he  in 
his  turn  tasted  some  of  its  flavor,  which,  make  what 
sour  mouths  he  would  for  a  pretence,  proved  not  alto- 
gether displeasing  to  him.  In  conclusion  (for  the 
manuscnpt  here  is  a  little  tedious)  both  father   anc? 


206  A  DISSERTATION  UPON   ROAST   PIG. 

son  fairly  set  dovra  to  the  mess,  and  never  left  off  till 
tliey  had  despatched  all  that  remained  of  the  litter. 

Bo-bo  was  strictly  enjoined  not  to  let  the  secret  es- 
cape, for  the  neighbors  would  certainly  have  stoned 
them  for  a  couple  of  abommable  wretches,  who  could 
think  of  improving  upon  the  good  meat  which  God  had 
sent  them.  Nevertheless,  strange  stories  got  about. 
It  was  observed  that  Ho-ti's  cottage  was  burnt  down 
now  more  frequently  than  ever.  Nothing  but  fires 
from  tliis  time  forward.  Some  would  break  out  in 
broad  day,  others  in  the  night  time.  As  often  as  the 
sow  farrowed,  so  sure  was  the  house  of  Ho-ti  to  be  in  a 
blaze ;  and  Ho-ti  himself,  which  was  the  more  remark- 
able, instead  of  chastising  his  son,  seemed  to  grow  more 
indulgent  to  him  than  ever.  At  length  they  were 
watched,  the  terrible  mystery  discovered,  and  father 
and  son  summoned  to  take  their  trial  at  Pekin,  then  an 
inconsiderable  assize  town.  E-vadence  was  given,  the 
obnoxious  food  itself  produced  in  court,  and  verdict 
about  to  be  pronounced,  when  the  foreman  of  the  jury 
begged  that  som<3  of  the  burnt  pig,  of  which  the  cul- 
prits stood  accused,  might  be  handed  into  the  box. 
He  handled  it,  and  they  all  handled  it ;  and  burning 
their  fingers,  as  Bo-bo  and  his  father  had  done  before 
them,  and  nature  prompting  to  each  of  them  the  same 
remedy,  against  the  face  of  all  the  facts,  and  the 
clearest  charge  which  judge  had  ever  given,  —  to  the 
surprise  of  the  whole  court,  townsfolk,  strangers,  re- 
porters, and  all  present,  —  without  leaving  the  box,  or 
any  manner  of  consultation  whatever,  they  brought  iu 
a  simultaneous  verdict  of  Not  Guilty. 

The  judge,  who  was  a  shrewd  fellow,  winked  at  the 
manifest  iniquity  of  the  decision  ;  and  when  the  court 


A  DISSERTATION  UPON  ROAST  PIG.  207 

was  dismissed,  went  privily,  and  bought  up  all  the  pigs 
that  could  be  had  for  love  or  money.  In  a  few  days 
his  Lordship's  town-house  was  observed  to  be  on  fire. 
The  thino;  took  wincr,  and  now  there  was  nothing  to  be 
seen  but  fire  in  every  cUrection.  Fuel  and  pigs  grew 
enormously  dear  all  over  the  district.  The  insurance 
offices  one  and  all  shut  up  shop.  People  built  slighter 
and  slighter  every  day,  until  it  was  feared  that  the  very 
science  of  architecture  would  in  no  long  time  be  lost  to 
the  world.  Thus  tliis  custom  of  firing  houses  con- 
tinued, till  in  process  of  time,  says  my  manuscript,  a 
sage  arose,  like  our  Locke,  who  made  a  discoveiy,  that 
the  flesh  of  swine,  or  indeed  of  any  other  animal,  might 
be  cooked  (burnt,  as  they  called  it)  without  the  neces- 
sity of  consuming  a  whole  house  to  dress  it.  Then  first 
began  the  rude  form  of  a  gridiron.  Roasting  by  the 
string  or  spit  came  in  a  century  or  two  later  ;  I  forget 
in  whose  dynasty.  By  such  slow  degrees,  concludes 
the  manuscript,  do  the  most  useful,  and  seemingly  the 
most  obvious  arts  make  their  way  among  man- 
kind. 

Without  placing  too  implicit  faith  in  the  account 
above  given,  it  must  be  agreed,  that  if  a  worthy  pre- 
text for  so  dangerous  an  experiment  as  setting  houses 
on  fire  (especially  in  these  days)  could  be  assigned  in 
favor  of  any  culinary  object,  that  pretext  and  excuse 
might  be  found  in  roast  pig. 

Of  all  the  deh^acies  in  the  whole  mundus  edihilis^ 
I  will  maintain  it  to  be  the  most  delicate — prineeps 
obsoniorum. 

I  speak  not  of  your  grown  porkers  —  things  between 
pig  and  pork  —  those  hobbydehoys  —  but  a  young  and 
tender  suckling  —  under  a  moon  old  —  guiltless  as  ye< 


208  A  DISSERTATION  UPON  ROAST   PIG. 

of  the  sty  —  with  no  original  speck  of  the  armr  immwnr 
ditice^  the  hereditary  failing  of  the  first  parent,  yet 
manifest  —  his  voice  as  yet  not  broken,  but  something 
between  a  childish  treble  and  a  grumble  —  the  mild 
forerunner,  or  prceludium  of  a  grunt. 

Se  must  he  roasted.  I  am  not  ignorant  that  our  an 
cestors  ate  them  seethed,  or  boiled,  —  but  what  a  sacri- 
fice of  the  exterior  temiment ! 

There  is  no  flavor  comparable,  I  will  contend,  to 
that  of  the  crisp,  tawny,  well-watched,  not  over- 
roasted, crackling^  as  it  is  well  called,  —  the  very  teeth 
are  invited  to  their  share  of  the  pleasure  at  this  banquet 
in  overcoming  the  coy,  brittle  resistance,  —  with  the  ad- 
hesive oleao-inous  —  O  call  it  not  fat !  but  an  indefin- 
able  sweetness  growing  up  to  it,  —  the  tender  blossom- 
ing of  fat  —  fat  cropped  in  the  bud  —  taken  in  the 
shoot  —  in  the  first  innocence  —  the  cream  and  quintes- 
sence of  the  child-pig's  yet  pure  food, the  lean,  no 

lean,  but  a  kind  of  animal  manna,  —  or,  rather,  fat  and 
lean  (if  it  must  be  so)  so  blended  and  running  into 
each  other,  that  both  together  make  but  one  ambrosian 
result,  or  common  substance. 

Behold  him,  while  he  is  "  doing  "  —  it  seemeth  rather 
a  refreshing  warmth,  than  a  scorching  heat,  that  he  is 
so  passive  to.  How  equably  he  twirleth  round  the 
string !  Now  he  is  just  done.  To  see  the  extreme 
sensibility  of  that  tender  age !  he  hath  wept  out  his 
pretty  eyes  —  radiant  jellies  —  shooting  stars. 

See  him  in  the  dish,  his  second  cradle,  how  meek  he 
lieth  !  —  wouldst  thou  have  had  this  innocent  grow  up 
to  the  grossness  and  indocility  which  too  often  accom- 
pany maturer  swinehood  ?  Ten  to  one  he  would  liave 
proved  a  glutton,  a  sloven,  an  obstinate,  disagreeable 


A  DISSERTATION   UPON   ROAST  PIG.  2u9 

animal  —  wallowing  in  all  manner  of  filthy  convei'sa- 
tion,  —  from  these  sins  he  is  happily  snatched  away,  — 

Ere  sin  could  blight  or  sorrow  fade, 
Death  came  with  timely  care  — 

his  memory  is  odoriferous,  —  no  clown  curseth,  while 
his  stomach  half  rejecteth,  the  rank  bacon,  —  no  coal- 
heaver  bolteth  him  in  reeking  sausages,  —  he  hath  a  fair 
sepulchre  in  the  grateful  stomach  of  the  judicious  epi- 
cure, —  and  for  such  a  tomb  might  be  content  to  die. 

He  is  the  best  of  sapors.  Pineapple  is  great.  She 
is  indeed  almost  too  transcendent  —  a  delight,  if  not 
sinful,  yet  so  like  to  sinning  that  really  a  tender  con- 
scienced  person  would  do  well  to  pause  —  too  ravishing 
for  mortal  taste,  she  woundeth  and  excoriateth  the  lips 
that  approach  her  —  like  lovers'  kisses,  she  biteth  — 
she  is  a  pleasure  bordering  on  pain  from  the  fierceness 
and  insanity  of  her  relish  —  but  she  stoppeth  at  the 
palate  —  she  meddleth  not  with  the  appetite  —  and  the 
coarsest  hunger  might  barter  her  consistently  for  a 
mutton  chop. 

Pig  —  let  me  speak  his  praise  —  is  no  less  provoca- 
tive of  the  appetite,  than  he  is  satisfactory  to  the  criti- 
calness  of  the  censorious  palate.  The  strong  man  may 
batten  on  him,  and  the  weakling  refiiseth  not  his  mild 
juices. 

Unlike  to  mankind's  mixed  characters,  a  bundle  of 
virtues  and  vices,  inexplicably  intertwisted,  and  not  to 
be  unravelled  without  hazard,  he  is  —  good  throughout. 
No  part  of  him  is  better  or  worse  than  another.  lie 
helpeth,  as  far  as  his  little  means  extend,  all  around. 
He  is  the  least  envious  of  banquets.  He  is  all  neigh- 
bors's  fare. 

VOL.  III.  14 


210  A   DISSERTATION   UPON  ROAST   PIG. 

I  am  one  of  those,  who  freely  and  ungrudgingly  im- 
part a  share  of  the  good  things  of  this  life  which  fall  to 
their  lot  (few  as  mine  are  in  this  kind)  to  a  friend.  I 
protest  I  take  as  great  an  interest  in  my  friend's  pleas- 
ures, his  relishes,  and  proper  satisfactions,  as  in  mine 
own.  "  Presents,"  I  often  say,  "  endear  Absents." 
Hares,  pheasants,  partridges,  snipes,  barn-door  chickens, 
(those  "  tame  villatic  fowl,")  capons,  plovers,  brawn, 
barrels  of  oysters,  I  dispense  as  freely  as  I  receive 
them.  I  love  to  taste  them,  as  it  were,  upon  the 
tongue  of  my  friend.  But  a  stop  must  be  put  some- 
where. One  would  not,  like  Lear,  "  give  everything.'* 
I  make  my  stand  upon  pig.  Methinks  it  is  an  ingrati- 
tude to  the  Giver  of  all  good  flavors,  to  extra-domicili- 
ate,  or  send  out  of  the  house,  slightingly,  (under  pre- 
text of  friendship,  or  I  know  not  what,)  a  blessing  so 
particularly  adapted,  predestined,  I  may  say,  to  my  in- 
dividual palate  —  It  argues  an  insensibility. 

I  remember  a  touch  of  conscience  in  this  kind  at 
school.  My  good  old  aunt,  who  never  parted  from  me 
at  the  end  of  a  holiday  without  stuffing  a  sweetmeat, 
or  some  nice  thing,  into  my  pocket,  had  dismissed  me 
one  evening  with  a  smoking  plum-cake  fi'esh  fi'om  the 
oven.  In  my  way  to  school  (it  was  over  London 
bridge)  a  grayheaded  old  beggar  saluted  me  (I  have 
no  doubt,  at  this  time  of  day,  that  he  was  a  counter- 
feit). I  had  no  pence  to  console  him  with,  and  in  the 
vanity  of  self-denial,  and  the  very  coxcombry  of  charity, 
schoolboy-like,  I  made  him  a  present  of —  the  whole 
cake  !  I  walked  on  a  little,  buoyed  up,  as  one  is  on 
Buch  occasions,  with  a  sweet  soothing  of  self-satisfac- 
tion ;  but  before  I  had  got  to  the  end  of  the  bridge,  my 
better  feelings  returned,  and  I  burst  into  tears,  think- 


A  DISSERTATION  UPON  ROAST  PIG.  211 

ing  how  ungrateful  I  had  been  to  my  good  aunt,  to  go 
and  give  her  good  gift  away  to  a  stranger  that  I  had 
never  seen  before,  and  who  might  be  a  bad  man  for 
aught  I  knew ;  and  then  I  thought  of  the  pleasure  my 
aunt  would  be  taking  in  thinking  that  I  —  I  myself, 
and  not  another  —  would  eat  her  nice  cake,  —  and  what 
should  I  say  to  her  the  next  time  I  saw  her,  —  how 
naughty  I  was  to  part  with  her  pretty  present !  —  and 
the  odor  of  that  spicy  cake  came  back  upon  my  recol- 
lection, and  the  pleasure  and  the  cui'iosity  I  had  taken 
in  seeing  her  make  it,  and  her  joy  when  she  sent  it  to 
the  oven,  and  how  disappointed  she  would  feel  that  I 
had  never  had  a  bit  of  it  in  my  mouth  at  last,  —  and  I 
blamed  my  impertinent  spirit  of  alms-giving,  and  out- 
of-place  hypocrisy  of  goodness  ;  and  above  all  I  wished 
never  to  see  the  face  again  of  that  insidious,  good-for- 
nothing,  old  gray  impostor. 

Our  ancestors  were  nice  in  their  method  of  sacri- 
ficing these  tender  victims.  We  read  of  pigs  whipt  to 
death  with  something  of  a  shock,  as  we  hear  of  any 
other  obsolete  custom.  The  age  of  discipline  is  gone 
by,  or  it  would  be  curious  to  inquire  (in  a  philosophical 
light  merely)  what  effect  this  process  might  have  tow- 
ards intenerating  and  dulcifying  a  substance,  natu- 
rally so  mild  and  dulcet  as  the  flesh  of  young  pigs.  It 
looks  like  refining  a  violet.  Yet  we  should  be  cautious, 
while  we  condemn  the  inhumanity,  how  we  censure  the 
wisdom  of  the  practice.     It  might  impart  a  gusto. 

I  remember  an  hypothesis,  argued  upon  by  the 
yorng  students,  when  I  was  at  St.  Omer's,  and  main- 
tained with  much  learning  and  pleasantry  on  both 
sides,  "  Wh3ther,  supposing  that  the  flavor  of  a  pig 
who  obtained  his  death  by  whipping  Qper  fiagellationem 


212  A  BACHELOR'S   COMPLAINT   OF 

extremam'),  superadded  a  pleasure  upon  the  palate  of  a 
man  more  intense  than  any  possible  suffering  we  can 
conceive  in  the  animal,  is  man  justified  in  using  that 
method  of  putting  the  animal  to  death  ?  "  I  forget 
the  decision. 

His  sauce  should  be  considered.  Decidedly,  a  few 
bread-crumbs,  done  up  with  his  liver  and  brains,  and  a 
dash  of  mild  sage.  But  banish,  dear  Mrs.  Cook,  I 
beseech  you,  the  whole  onion  tribe.  Barbecue  your 
whole  hogs  to  your  palate,  steep  them  m  shalots,  stuff 
them  out  with  plantations  of  the  rank  and  guilty  garlic; 
you  cannot  poison  them,  or  make  them  stronger  than 
they  are,  —  but  consider,  he  is  a  weakling  —  a  flower. 


A  BACHELOR'S   COMPLAINT  OF  THE  BEHAVIOR 
OF  MARRIED  PEOPLE. 

As  a  single  man,  I  have  spent  a  good  deal  of  my 
time  in  noting  down  the  infirmities  of  Married  People, 
to  console  myself  for  those  superior  pleasures,  which 
they  tell  me  I  have  lost  by  remaining  as  I  am. 

I  cannot  say  that  the  quarrels  of  men  and  their 
wives  ever  made  any  great  impression  upon  me,  or  had 
much  tendency  to  strengthen  me  in  those  anti-social 
resolutions,  which  I  took  up  long  ago  upon  more  sub- 
stantial considerations.  What  oftenest  offends  me  at 
the  houses;  of  married  persons  where  I  visit,  is  an  error 
of  quite  a  different  description  ;  —  it  is  that  they  are  too 
lovinff. 


THE   BEHAVIOR   OF   MARRIED   PEOPLE.  213 

Not  too  loving  neither  ;  that  does  not  explain  my 
oieaning.  Besides,  why  should  that  offend  me  ?  The 
very  act  of  separating  themselves  from  the  rest  of  the 
world,  to  have  the  fuller  enjoyment  of  each  other's 
society,  implies  that  they  prefer  one  another  to  all  the 
world. 

But  what  I  complain  of  is,  that  they  carry  this  pref- 
erence so  undisguisedly,  they  perk  it  up  in  the  faces 
of  us  single  people  so  shamelessly,  you  cannot  be  in 
their  company  a  moment  without  being  made  to  feel, 
by  some  indirect  hint  or  open  avowal,  that  you  are  not 
the  object  of  this  preference.  Now  there  are  some 
tilings  which  give  no  offence,  while  implied  or  taken  for 
granted  merely ;  but  expressed,  there  is  much  offence 
in  them.  If  a  man  were  to  accost  the  first  homely- 
featured,  or  plain-  dressed  young  woman  of  his  acquaint- 
ance, and  tell  her  bluntly,  that  she  was  not  handsome 
or  rich  enough  for  him,  and  he  could  not  marry  her, 
he  would  deserve  to  be  kicked  for  his  ill  manners  ;  yet 
no  less  is  implied  in  the  fact,  that  having  access  and  op- 
portunity of  putting  the  question  to  her,  he  has  never 
yet  thought  fit  to  do  it.  The  young  woman  under- 
stands this  as  clearly  as  if  it  were  put  into  words  ;  but 
no  reasonable  young  woman  would  think  of  making 
this  the  ground  of  a  quarrel.  Just  as  little  right  have 
a  married  couple  to  tell  me  by  speeches,  and  looks  that 
are  scarce  less  plain  than  speeches,  that  I  am  not  the 
happy  man,  —  the  lady's  choice.  It  is  enough  that  I 
know  I  am  not ;  I  do  not  want  this  perpetual  remind- 
ing- 

The  display  of  superior  knowledge  or  riches  may  be 
made  sufficiently  mortifying ;  but  these  admit  of  a 
palhative.     The   knowledge  which  is  brought  out  to 


214  A  BACHELOR'S   COMPLAINT  OF 

insult  me,  may  accidentally  improve  me ;  and  in  the 
rich  man's  houses  and  pictures,  —  his  parks  and  gar- 
dens, I  have  a  temporary  usufruct  at  least.  But  the 
display  of  married  happiness  has  none  of  these  pallia- 
tives ;  it  is  throughout  pm-e,  unrecompensed,  unquali- 
fied insult. 

Marriage  by  its  best  title  is  a  monopoly,  and  not  of 
the  least  in-\adious  sort.  It  is  the  cunning  of  most  pos- 
sessors of  any  exclusive  privilege  to  keep  their  advan- 
tage as  much  out  of  sight  as  possible,  that  their  less 
favored  neighbors,  seeing  little  of  the  benefit,  may  the 
less  be  disposed  to  question  the  right.  But  these  mar- 
ried monopolists  thrust  the  most  obnoxious  part  of  their 
patent  into  our  faces. 

Nothing  is  to  me  more  distasteful  than  that  entire 
complacency  and  satisfaction  which  beam  in  the  coun- 
tenances of  a  new-married  couple,  —  in  that  of  the 
lady  particularly ;  it  tells  you,  that  her  lot  is  disposed 
of  in  this  world ;  that  you  can  have  no  hopes  of  her. 
It  is  true,  I  have  none  ;  nor  wishes  either,  perhaps  ;  but 
this  is  one  of  those  truths  which  ought,  as  I  said  before, 
to  be  taken  for  granted,  not  expressed. 

The  excessive  airs  which  those  people  give  them- 
selves, founded  on  the  ignorance  of  us  unmarried 
people,  would  be  more  offensive  if  they  were  less  in*a- 
tional.  We  will  allow  them  to  understand  the  mys- 
teries belongino;  to  their  own  craft  better  than  we,  who 
have  not  had  the  happiness  to  be  made  free  of  the  com- 
pany ;  but  their  aiTogance  is  not  content  within  these 
limits.  If  a  single  person  presume  to  offer  his  opinion 
in  their  presence,  though  upon  the  most  indifferent 
iubject,  he  is  immediately  silenced  as  an  incompetent 
person.     Nay,  a  young  mai'ried  lady  of  my  acquaint- 


THE  BEHAVIOR  OF  MARRIED  PEOPLE.  215 

ance,  who,  the  best  of  the  jest  was,  had  not  changed 
her  condition  above  a  fortnight  before,  in  a  question  on 
which  I  had  the  misfortune  to  differ  from  her,  respect- 
ing the  properest  mode  of  breeding  oysters  for  the 
London  market,  had  the  assurance  to  ask  with  a  sneer, 
how  such  an  old  bachelor  as  I  could  pretend  to  know 
anything  about  such  matters  ! 

But  what  I  have  spoken  of  hitherto  is  nothing  to 
the  airs  which  these  creatures  give  themselves  when 
they  come,  as  they  generally  do,  to  have  children. 
Wlien  I  consider  how  little  of  a  rarity  children  are,  — 
that  every  street  and  blind  alley  swarms  with  them,  — 
that  the  poorest  people  commonly  have  them  in  most 
abimdance,  —  that  there  are  few  marriages  that  are  not 
blest  with  at  least  one  of  these  bargains,  —  how  often 
they  turn  out  ill,  and  defeat  the  fond  hopes  of  their 
parents,  taking  to  vicious  courses,  which  end  in  pov- 
erty, disgrace,  the  gallows,  &c.,  —  I  cannot  for  my  life 
tell  what  cause  for  pride  there  can  possibly  be  in  hav- 
ing them.  If  they  were  young  phoenixes,  indeed,  that 
were  born  but  one  in  a  year,  there  might  be  a  pretext. 
But  when  they  are  so  common 

I  do  not  advert  to  the  insolent  merit  which  they 
assume  with  their  husbands  on  these  occasions.  Let 
them  look  to  that.  But  why  we,  who  are  not  their 
natural-born  subjects,  should  be  expected  to  bring  our 
spices,  myrrh,  and  incense,  —  our  tribute  and  homage 
of  admiration,  —  I  do  not  see. 

"  Like  as  the  arrows  in  the  hand  of  the  giant  even 

so  are  the  young  children;"  so  says  the  excellent  office 

pin  our  Prayer-Book  appointed  for  the  churching  of 

women.     "  Happy  is  the  man  that  hath  his  quiver  full 

of  them ;  "    so  say  I ;    but  then  don't  let  him  dis- 


216         A  BACHELOR'S  COMPLAINT  OF 

charge  his  quiver  upon  us  that  are  weaponless ;  —  let 
them  be  arrows,  but  not  to  gall  and  stick  us.  1  have 
generally  observed  that  these  arrows  are  double-headed : 
they  have  two  forks,  to  be  sure  to  hit  with  one  or  the 
other.  As  for  instance,  where  you  come  into  a  house 
which  is  full  of  children,  if  you  happen  to  take  no 
notice  of  them,  (you  are  thinking  of  something  else, 
perhaps,  and  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  their  innocent  caresses,) 
you  are  set  down  as  untractable,  morose,  a  hater  of 
children.  On  the  other  hand,  if  you  find  them  more 
than  usually  engaging,  —  if  you  are  taken  with  their 
pretty  manners,  and  set  about  in  earnest  to  romp  and 
play  with  them,  some  pretext  or  other  is  sure  to  be 
found  for  sending  them  out  of  the  room ;   they  are  too 

noisy  or  boisterous,  or  Mr. does  not  like  children . 

With  one  or  other  of  these  forks  the  arrow  is  sure  to 
hit  you. 

I  could  forgive  their  jealousy,  and  dispense  with  toy- 
ing with  their  brats,  if  it  gives  them  any  pain ;  but  I 
think  it  unreasonable  to  be  called  upon  to  love  them, 
where  I  see  no  occasion,  —  to  love  a  whole  family, 
perhaps,  eight,  nine,  or  ten,  indiscriminately,  —  to  love 
all  the  pretty  dears,  because  childi-en  are  so  engaging! 

I  know  there  is  a  proverb,  "  Love  me,  love  my 
dog ; "  that  is  not  always  so  very  practicable,  particu- 
larly if  the  dog  be  set  upon  you  to  tease  you  or  snap  at 
you  in  sport.  But  a  dog,  or  a  lesser  thing,  —  any  in- 
animate substance,  as  a  keepsake,  a  watch  or  a  ring,  a 
tree,  or  the  place  where  we  last  parted  when  my  fiiend 
went  away  upon  a  long  absence,  I  can  make  shift  to 
love,  because  I  love  him,  and  anything  that  reminds  me 
of  him  ;  provided  it  be  in  its  nature  indifferent,  and  apt 
to  receive  whatever  hue  fancy  can  give  it.     But  chil 


THF   BEHAVIOR   OF   MARRIKD    PEOPLE.  217 

dren  have  a  real  character,  and  an  essential  being  of 
themselves ;  they  are  amiable  or  unamiable  j^gr  se ;  I 
must  love  or  hate  them  as  I  see  cause  for  either  in  their 
qualities.  A  child's  nature  is  too  serious  a  thing  to 
admit  of  its  being  regarded  as  a  mere  appendage  to 
another  being,  and  to  be  loved  or  hated  accordingly ; 
they  stand  with  me  upon  their  own  stock,  as  much  as 
men  and  women  do.  Oh  !  but  you  will  say,  sure  it  is 
an  attractive  age, — there  is  sometliing  in  the  tender 
years  of  infancy  that  of  itself  charms  us  ?  That  is  the 
very  reason  why  I  am  more  nice  about  them.  I  know 
that  a  sweet  child  is  the  sweetest  thing  in  nature,  not 
even  excepting  the  delicate  creatures  which  bear  them ; 
but  the  prettier  the  kind  of  a  thing  is,  the  more  desir- 
able it  is  that  it  should  be  pretty  of  its  kind.  One 
daisy  differs  not  much  from  another  in  glory;  but  a 
violet  should  look  and  smell  the  daintiest.  I  was 
always  rather  squeamish  in  my  women  and  children. 
But  this  is  not  the  worst ;  one  must  be  admitted 
mto  their  familiarity  at  least,  before  they  can  complain 
of  inattention.  It  implies  visits,  and  some  kind  of  in- 
tercourse. But  if  the  husband  be  a  man  with  Avhom 
you  have  lived  on  a  friendly  footing  before  marriage  — 
if  you  did  not  come  in  on  the  wife's  side  —  if  you  did 
not  sneak  into  the  house  in  her  train,  but  were  an  old 
friend  in  fast  habits  of  intimacy  before  their  courtship 
was  so  much  as  thought  on,  —  look  about  you  —  your 
tenure  is  precarious  —  before  a  twelvemonth  shall  roll 
over  your  head,  you  shall  find  your  old  friend  gradually 
grow  cool  and  altered  towards  you,  and  at  last  seek  op 
portunities  of  breaking  with  you.  I  have  scarce  a 
married  friend  of  my  acquaintance,  upon  whose  firm 
faith  I  can  rely,  whose  friendship  did  not  commence 


218  A  BACHELOR'S    COMPLAINT    OF 

after  the  period  of  Jus  marriage.  With  some  Ihnita- 
tions,  they  can  endure  that;  but  tliat  the  good  man 
should  have  dared  to  enter  into  a  solemn  league  of 
friendship  in  which  they  were  not  consulted,  though  it 
happened  before  they  knew  him,  —  before  they  that  are 
now  man  and  wife  ever  met,  —  this  is  intolerable  to 
them.  Every  long  fi'iendship,  every  old  authentic  inti- 
macy, must  be  brought  into  their  office  to  be  new 
stamped  with  their  currency,  as  a  sovereign  prince  calls 
in  the  good  old  money  that  was  coined  in  some  reign 
before  he  was  born  or  thought  of,  to  be  new  marked 
and  minted  Avith  the  stamp  of  his  authority,  before  he 
will  let  it  pass  current  in  the  world.  You  may  guess 
what  luck  generally  befalls  such  a  nisty  piece  of  metal 
as  I  am  in  these  new  mintings. 

Innumerable  are  the  ways  which  they  take  to  insult 
and  worm  you  out  of  their  husband's  confidence. 
Laughing  at  all  you  say  with  a  kind  of  wonder,  as 
if  you  were  a  queer  kind  of  fellow  that  said  good 
things,  hut  an  oddity.,  is  one  of  the  ways ;  —  they  have 
a  particular  kind  of  stare  for  the  purpose  ;  —  till  at  last 
the  husband,  who  used  to  defer  to  your  judgment,  and 
would  pass  over  some  excrescences  of  understanding 
and  manner  for  the  sake  of  a  general  vein  of  obser- 
vation (not  quite  vulgar)  which  he  perceived  in  you, 
begins  to  suspect  whether  you  are  not  altogether  a 
humorist,  —  a  fellow  well  enough  to  have  consorted 
with  in  his  bachelor  days,  but  not  quite  so  proper  to  be 
introduced  to  ladies.  This  may  be  called  the  staring 
way  ;  and  is  that  which  has  oftenest  been  put  in  prac- 
tice against  me. 

Then  there  is  the  exaggerating  way,  or  the  way  of 
irony ;    that  is,  where  they  find  you  an  object  of  es])e- 


THE   BEHAVIOR   OF  MARRIED   PEOPLE.  219 

cial  regard  with  their  liusLand,  who  is  not  so  easily  1o 
be  sliaken  from  the  lasting  attachment  founded  on 
esteem  which  he  has  conceived  towards  you,  by  never 
qualified  exaggerations  to  cry  up  all  that  you  say  or  do, 
till  the  good  man,  who  understands  well  enough  that  it 
is  all  done  in  compliment  to  him,  grows  weary  of  the 
debt  of  gratitude  which  is  due  to  so  much  candor,  and 
by  relaxing  a  little  on  his  part,  and  taking  down  a  peg 
or  two  in  his  enthusiasm,  sinks  at  length  to  the  kindly 
level  of  moderate  esteem  —  that  "  decent  affection  and 
complacent  kindness  "  towards  you,  where  she  herself 
can  join  in  sympathy  with  him  without  much  stretch 
and  violence  to  her  sincerity. 

Another  way  (for  the  ways  they  have  to  accomplish 
so  desirable  a  purpose  are  infinite)  is,  with  a  kind  of 
innocent  simplicity,  continually  to  mistake  what  it  was 
which  first  made  their  husband  fond  of  you.  If  an 
esteem  for  something  excellent  in  your  moral  character 
was  that  which  riveted  the  chain  which  she  is  to  break, 
upon  any  imaginary  discovery  of  a  want  of  poignancy 
in  your  conversation,  she  will  cry,   "  I   thought,  my 

dear,  you  described  your  friend,  Mr. ,  as  a  great 

wit?"  If,  on  the  other  hand,  it  was  for  some  supposed 
charm  in  your  conversation  that  he  first  grew  to  like 
you,  and  was  content  for  this  to  overlook  some  trifling 
irregularities  in  your  moral  deportment,  upon  the  first 
notice  of  any  of  these  she  as  readily  exclaims,  "  This, 

my  dear,  is  your  good  Mr. !  "     One  good  lady 

whom  I  took  the  liberty  of  expostulating  with  for  not 
showing  me  quite  so  much  respect  as  I  thought  due  to 
her  husband's  old  friend,  had  the  candor  to  confess  to 

me  that  she  had  often  heard  jVIr. s])eak  of  me 

before  marriage,  and  that  she  had  conceived   a   great 


22U        A  BACHELORS  COMPLAINT,  ETC. 

desire  to  be  acquainted  with  me,  but  that  the  sight  of 
me  had  very  much  disappointed  her  expectations  ;  for 
from  her  liusband's  representations  of  me,  she  had 
formed  a  notion  that  she  was  to  see  a  fine,  tall,  officer- 
like  looking  man,  (I  use  her  very  words,)  the  very 
reverse  of  which  proved  to  be  the  truth.  This  was 
candid ;  and  I  had  the  civility  not  to  ask  her  in  return, 
how  she  came  to  pitch  upon  a  standard  of  personal 
accomplishments  for  her  husband's  friends  which  dif- 
fered so  much  from  his  own ;  for  my  fi'iend's  dimen- 
sions as  near  as  possible  approximate  to  mine  ;  he  stand- 
ing five  feet  five  in  his  shoes,  in  wdiich  I  have  the 
advantage  of  him  by  about  half  an  inch  ;  and  he  no 
more  than  myself  exhibiting  any  indications  of  a 
martial  character  in  his  air  or  countenance. 

These  are  some  of  the  mortifications  Avhich  I  have 
encountered  in  the  absurd  attempt  to  visit  at  their 
houses.  To  enumerate  them  all  would  be  a  vain  en- 
deavor ;  I  shall  therefore  just  glance  at  the  very  com 
mon  impropriety  of  which  married  ladies  are  guilty,  — 
of  treating  us  as  if  we  were  their  husbands,  and  vice 
versd.  I  mean,  when  they  use  us  with  familiarity,  and 
their  husbands  with  ceremony.  Testaeea,  for  instance, 
kept  me  the  other  night  two  or  three  hours  beyond  my 
usual  time  of  supping,  while  she  was  fi'etting  because 

Mr. did  not  come  home,  till  the  oysters  were 

all  spoiled,  rather  than  she  Avould  be  guilty  of  the  im- 
politeness of  touching  one  in  his  absence.  This  was 
reversing  the  point  of  good  manners ;  for  ceremony  is 
an  invention  to  take  off  the  uneasy  feeling  which  we 
derive  from  knowing  ourselves  to  be  less  the  object  of 
love  ard  esteem  with  a  fellow-creature  than  some  other 
person   is.      It   endeavors   to   make   up,    by   superior 


ON  SOME  OF  THE  OLD  ACTOKS.        221 

attentions  in  little  points,  for  that  invidious  preference 
which  it  is  forced  to  deny  in  the  greater.  Had  Tes- 
tacea  kept  the  oysters  back  for  me,  and  withstood  her 
husband's  importunities  to  go  to  supper,  she  would  have 
acted  according  to  the  strict  rules  of  propriety.  I  know 
no  ceremony  that  ladies  are  bound  to  observe  to  their 
husbands,  beyond  the  point  of  a  modest  behavior  and 
decorum  ;  therefore  I  must  protest  against  the  vicanous 
gluttony  of  Cet'asia,  who  at  her  own  table  sent  away  a 
dish  of  Morellas,  which  I  was  applying  to  with  great 
good-will,  to  her  husband  at  the  other  end  of  the  table, 
and  recommended  a  plate  of  less  extraordinary  goose- 
berries to  my  unwedded  palate  in  their  stead.     Neither 

can  I  excuse  the  wanton  affront  of • 

But  I  am  weary  of  stringing  up  all  my  married  ac- 
quaintance by  Roman  denominations.  Let  them  amend 
and  change  their  manners,  or  I  promise  to  record  the 
full-length  English  of  their  names,  to  the  terror  of  all 
such  desperate  offenders  in  future. 


ON   SOME   OF   THE   OLD   ACTORS. 

The  casual  sight  of  an  old  playbill,  which  I  picked 
up  the  other  day  —  I  know  not  by  what  chance  it  was 
preserved  so  long  —  tempts  me  to  call  to  mind  a  few  of 
the  players,  who  make  the  principal  figure  in  it.  It 
presents  the  cast  of  parts  in  the  Twelfth  Night,  at  the 
old  Drury  Lane  Theatre,  two-and-thirty  years  ago. 
There  is  something  very  touching  in  these  old  remem- 


222  ON   SOME   OF   THE   OLD   ACTORS. 

brances.  They  make  us  think  liow  we  once  used  to 
read  a  playbill,  —  not,  as  now  perad venture,  singling 
out  a  favorite  performer,  and  casting  a  negligent  eye 
over  the  rest ;  but  spelling  out  every  name,  down  to 
the  very  mutes  and  servants  of  the  scene  ;  —  when  it 
was  a  matter  of  no  siuall  moment  to  us  whether  Whit- 
field, or  Packer,  took  the  })art  of  Fabian ;  when  Ben- 
son, and  Burton,  and  Phillimore  —  names  of  small 
account  —  had  an  importance,  beyond  what  we  can 
be  content  to  attribute  now  to  the  time's  best  actors. 
"  Orsino,  by  Mr.  Barrymore.  "  What  a  fiill  Shak- 
spearian  sound  it  carries  !  how  fresh  to  memory  arise 
the  image,  and  the  manner  of  the  gentle  actor ! 

Those  who  have  only  seen  Mrs.  Jordan  within  the 
last  ten  or  fifteen  years,  can  have  no  adequate  notion  of 
her  performance  of  such  parts  as  Ophelia ;  Helena,  in 
All's  Well  that  Ends  Well ;  and  Viola  in  this  play. 
Her  voice  had  latterly  acquired  a  coarseness,  which 
suited  well  enough  with  her  Nells  and  Hoydens,  but  in 
those  days  it  sank,  with  her  steady  melting  eye,  into 
the  heart.  Her  joyous  parts  —  in  which  her  memory 
now  chiefly  lives  —  in  her  youth  were  outdone  by  her 
plaintive  ones.  There  is  no  giving  an  account  how 
she  delivered  the  disguised  story  of  her  love  for  Orsino, 
It  was  no  set  speech,  that  she  had  foreseen,  so  as  to 
weave  it  into  an  harmonious  period,  line  necessarily 
following  line,  to  make  up  the  music,  —  yet  I  have 
heard  it  so  spoken,  or  rather  read^  not  without  its  grace 
and  beauty,  —  but,  when  she  had  declared  her  sister's 
history  to  be  a  "  blank,"  and  that  she  "  never  told  her 
love,"  there  was  a  pause,  as  if  the  story  had  ended,  — 
and  then  the  image  of  the  "  worm  in  the  bud,"  came 
up  as  a  new  suggestion,  —  and  the  heightened  image  of 


ON    SOME   OF   THK    Oi>D    ACTORS.  223 

"  Patience  "  still  followed  after  that,  as  by  some  grow- 
ing (and  not  meclianieal)  process,  thought  springing 
up  after  thought,  I  would  almost  say,  as  they  were 
watered  by  her  tears.     So  in  those  fine  lines  — 

Write  loyal  cantos  of  contemned  love  — 
Hollow  your  name  to  the  reverberate  hills  — 

there  was  no  preparation  made  in  the  foregoi)ig  image 
for  that  which  was  to  follow.  She  used  no  rhetoi'ic  in 
her  passion  ;  or  it  was  nature's  own  rhetoric,  most  legit- 
imate then,  when  it  seemed  altogether  without  rule  or 
law. 

Mrs.  Powel  (now  Mrs.  Renard),  then  in  the  pride 
of  her  beauty,  made  an  admirable  Olivia.  She  Avas 
particularly  excellent  in  her  unbending  scenes  in  con- 
versation with  the  Clown.  I  have  seen  some  Olivias 
—  and  those  very  sensible  actresses  too  —  who  in  these 
interlocutions  have  seemed  to  set  their  wits  at  the 
jester,  and  to  vie  conceits  with  him  in  downright 
emulation.  But  she  used  him  for  her  sport,  like  what 
he  was,  to  trifle  a  leisure  sentence  or  two  with,  and 
then  to  be  dismissed,  and  she  to  be  the  Great  Lady 
still.  She  touched  the  imperious  fantastic  humor  of 
the  character  with  nicety.  Her  fine  spacious  person 
filled  the  scene. 

The  part  of  Malvolio  has,  in  my  judgment,  been  so 
often  misunderstood,  and  the  general  merits  of  the 
actor,  who  then  played  it,  so  unduly  appreciated,  that 
I  shall  hope  for  pardon,  if  I  am  a  little  prolix  ujion 
these  points. 

Of  all  the  actors  who  flourished  in  my  time,  —  a 
melancholy  phrase  if  taken  aright,  reader,  —  Bcnsley 
had  most  of  the  swell  of  soul,   was  greatest  in   the 


224        ON  SOME  OF  THE  OLD  ACTORS. 

delivery  of  heroic  conceptions,  the  emotions  consequent 
upon  the  presentment  of  a  great  idea  to  the  fancy.  He 
had  the  true  poetical  enthusiasm  —  the  I'arest  faculty 
among  players.  None  that  I  remember  possessed  even 
a  portion  of  that  fine  madness  which  he  threw  out  in 
Hotspur's  famous  rant  about  glory,  or  the  transports  of 
the  Venetian  incendiary  at  the  vision  of  the  fired  city. 
His  voice  had  the  dissonance,  and  at  times  the  inspirit- 
ing effect,  of  the  trumpet.  His  gait  was  uncouth  and 
stiff,  but  no  way  embarrassed  by  affectation  ;  and 
the  thorough-bred  gentleman  was  uppermost  in  every 
movement.  He  seized  the  moment  of  passion  with 
greatest  truth ;  like  a  faithful  clock,  never  striking  be- 
fore the  time ;  never  anticipating  or  leading  you  to 
anticipate.  He  was  totally  destitute  of  trick  and  arti- 
fice. He  seemed  come  upon  the  stage  to  do  the  poet's 
message  simply,  and  he  did  it  with  as  genuine  fidelity 
as  the  nuncios  in  Homer  deliver  the  errands  of  the 
gods.  He  let  the  passion  or  the  sentiment  do  its  own 
work  without  prop  or  bolstering.  He  would  have 
scorned  to  mountebank  it ;  and  betrayed  none  of  that 
cleverness  which  is  the  bane  of  serious  acting.  For  this 
reason,  his  lago  was  the  only  endurable  one  Avhich  I 
remember  to  have  seen.  No  spectator  from  his  action 
could  divine  more  of  his  artifice  than  Othello  was  sup- 
posed to  do.  His  confessions  in  soliloquy  alone  put  you 
in  possession  of  the  mystery.  There  were  no  by-inti- 
mations to  make  the  audience  fancy  tlieir  own  discern- 
ment so  much  greater  than  that  of  the  Moor  —  Avho 
commonly  stands  like  a  great  helpless  mark  set  up  for 
mine  Ancient,  and  a  quantity  of  barren  sjiectators,  to 
shoot  their  bolts  at.  The  lago  of  Bensley  did  not  go 
to  work  so   grossly.      There  was  a  triumphant  tone 


ON  SOME  OF  THE  OLD  ACTORS.        225 

about  the  character,  natural  to  a  general  consciousness 
of  power ;  but  none  of  that  petty  vanity  which  chuckles 
and  cannot  contain  itself  upon  any  little  successful 
stroke  of  its  knavery  —  as  is  common  with  your  small 
villains,  and  green  probationers  in  mischief.  It  did  not 
clap  or  crow  before  its  time.  It  was  not  a  man  setting 
his  wits  at  a  child,  and  winking  all  the  while  at  other 
children  who  are  mightily  pleased  at  being  let  into  the 
secret ;  but  a  consummate  villain  entrapping  a  noble 
nature  into  toils,  against  which  no  discernment  was 
available,  where  the  manner  was  as  fathomless  as  the 
purpose  seemed  dark,  and  without  motive.  The  part 
of  Malvollo,  in  the  Twelfth  Night,  was  performed  by 
Bensley  with  a  richness  and  a  dignity,  of  which  (to 
judge  from  some  recent  castings  of  that  cliaracter)  the 
very  tradition  must  be  worn  out  from  the  stage.  No 
manager  in  those  days  would  have  dreamed  of  giving 
it  to  Mr.  Baddeley,  or  Mr.  Parsons  ;  when  Bensley 
was  occasionally  absent  from  the  theatre,  John  Kemble 
thought  it  no  derogation  to  succeed  to  the  part.  Mal- 
volio  is  not  essentially  ludicrous.  He  becomes  comic 
but  by  accident.  He  is  cold,  austere,  repelling  ;  but 
dignified,  consistent,  and,  for  what  appears,  rather  of  an 
over-stretched  morality.  Maria  describes  him  as  a 
sort  of  Puritan ;  and  he  might  have  worn  his  gold 
chain  with  honor  in  one  of  our  old  round  head  families, 
in  the  service  of  a  Lambert  or  a  Lady  Fairfax.  But 
his  morality  and  his  manncis  are  misplaced  in  Illyria. 
He  is  opposed  to  the  proper  levities  of  the  piece,  and 
falls  in  the  unequal  contest.  Still  his  pride,  or  his 
gravity  (call  it  which  you  will),  is  inherent,  and 
native  to  the  man,  not  mock  or  affected,  which  latter 
only  are  the  fit  objects  to  excite  laughter.     His  quality 

VOL.    III.  15 


226  ON   SOME   OF   THE    OLD   ACTORS. 

is  at  the  best  unlovely,  but  neither  buffoon  nor  con- 
temptible. His  bearing  is  lofty,  a  little  above  hia 
station,  but  probably  not  much  above  his  deserts.  We 
see  no  reason  why  he  should  not  have  been  brave, 
honorable,  accomplished.  His  careless  committal  of  the 
ring  to  the  ground  (which  he  was  commissioned  to 
restore  to  Cesario),  bespeaks  a  generosity  of  birth  and 
feeling.  His  dialect  on  all  occasions  is  that  of  a  gentle- 
man, and  a  man  of  education.  We  must  not  confound 
him  with  the  eternal  old,  low  steward  of  comedy.  He 
is  master  of  the  household  to  a  great  princess  ;  a  dignity 
probably  conferred  upon  him  for  other  respects  than  age 
or  length  of  service.  Olivia,  at  the  first  indication  of 
his  supposed  madness,  declares  that  she  "  would  not 
have  him  miscarry  for  half  of  her  dowry."  Does  this 
look  as  if  the  character  was  meant  to  appear  little  or 
insignificant  ?  Once,  indeed,  she  accuses  him  to  his 
face  —  of  what  ?  —  of  being  "  sick  of  self-love,"  —  but 
with  a  gentleness  and  considerateness  which  could  not 
have  been,  if  she  had  not  thought  that  this  particular 
infirmity  shaded  some  virtues.  His  rebuke  to  the 
knight,  and  his  sottish  revellers,  is  sensible  and  spir- 
ited ;  and  when  we  take  into  consideration  the  unpro- 
tected condition  of  his  mistress,  and  the  strict  regard 
with  which  her  state  of  real  or  dissembled  mourning 
would  draw  the  eyes  of  the  world  u})on  her  house 
affairs,  Malvolio  might  feel  the  honor  of  the  family  in 
some  sort  in  his  keeping ;  as  it  appears  not  that  Olivia 
had  any  more  brothers,  or  kinsmen,  to  look  to  it,  —  for 
Sir  Toby  had  dropped  all  such  nice  respects  at  the 
butteiy-hatch.  That  Malvolio  was  meant  to  be  repre- 
sented as  possessing  estimable  qualities,  the  expression 
of  the  Duk(;,   in  his   anxiety  to  have  him  reconciled, 


ON  SOME  OF  THE  OLD  ACTORS.        227 

almost  infers :  "  Pursue  him,  and  entreat  him  to  a 
peace."  Even  in  his  abused  state  of  chains  and  dark- 
ness, a  sort  of  greatness  seems  never  to  desert  him. 
He  argues  higlily  and  well  with  the  supposed  Sir 
Topas,  and  philosophizes  gallantly  upon  his  straw.* 
There  must  have  been  some  shadow  of  worth  about 
the  man ;  he  must  have  been  something  more  than  a 
mere  vapor  —  a  thing  of  straw,  or  Jack  in  office  — 
before  Fabian  and  Maria  could  have  ventured  sending 
him  upon  a  courting  errand  to  Olivia.  There  was 
some  consonancy  (as  he  would  say)  in  the  undertak- 
ing, or  the  jest  would  have  been  too  bold  even  for  that 
house  of  misrule. 

Bensley,  accordingly,  threw  over  the  part  an  air  of 
Spanish  loftiness.  He  looked,  spake,  and  moved  like 
an  old  Castilian.  He  was  starch,  spruce,  opinionated, 
but  his  superstnicture  of  pride  seemed  bottomed  upon 
a  sense  of  worth.  There  Avas  something  in  it  beyond 
the  coxcomb.  It  was  big  and  sAvelling,  but  you  could 
not  be  sure  that  it  was  hollow.  You  mio;ht  wish  to  see 
it  taken  down,  but  you  felt  that  it  was  upon  an  eleva- 
tion. He  was  magnificent  from  the  outset ;  but  when 
the  decent  sobrieties  of  the  character  began  to  give  way, 
and  the  poison  of  self-love,  in  his  conceit  of  the  Count- 
ess's affection,  gradually  to  work,  you  would  have 
thought  that  the  hero  of  La  Mancha  in  person  stood 
before  you.  How  he  went  smiling  to  himself!  with 
what  ineffable  carelessness  would  he  twirl  his  gold 
chain  !  what  a  dream  it  was !  you  were  infected  with 
the  illusion,  and  did  not  wish  that  it  should   be  re- 

*  Cloum.  What  is  the  opinion  of  Pythagoras  concerning  wild  fowl? 
Mai.   That  the  soul  of  our  grandatn  might  haply  inhabit  a  bird. 
down.  What  thinkest  thou  of  his  opinion? 
Mai.  I  think  noWy  of  the  soul,  and  no  way  approve  of  his  opinioD. 


228         ON  SOME  OF  THE  OLD  ACTORS. 

movod  !  you  had  no  room  for  laughter  !  if  an  unseason- 
able reflection  of  morality  obtruded  itself,  it  was  a  deep 
sense  of  the  pitiable  infirmity  of  man's  nature,  that  can 
lay  him  open  to  such  frenzies,  —  but  in  truth  you  rather 
admired  than  pitied  the  lunacy  while  it  lasted,  —  you 
felt  that  an  hour  of  such  mistake  was  worth  an  age 
with  the  eyes  open.  Who  would  not  wish  to  live  but 
for  a  day  in  the  conceit  of  such  a  lady's  love  as  Olivia  ? 
Why,  the  Duke  would  have  given  his  principality  but 
for  a  quarter  of  a  minute,  sleeping  or  waking,  to  have 
been  so  deluded.  The  man  seemed  to  tread  upon  air, 
to  taste  manna,  to  walk  with  his  head  in  the  clouds,  to 
mate  Hyperion.     O  !  shake  not  the  castles  of  his  pride, 

—  endure  yet  for  a  season,  bright  moments  of  confi- 
dence, —  "  stand  still,  ye  watches  of  the  element,"  that 
Malvolio  may  be  still  in  fancy  fair  Olivia's  lord  !  —  but 
fate  and  retribution  say  no  !  —  I  hear  the  mischievous 
titter  of  Maria,  —  the  witty  taunts  of  Sir  Toby  —  the 
still  more  insupportable  triumph  of  the  foolish  knight 

—  the  counterfeit  Sir  Topas  is  unmasked  —  and  ''  thus 
the  whirligig  of  time,"  as  the  true  clown  hath  it, 
"  brincrs  in  his  reveno;es."  I  confess  that  I  never  saw 
the  catastrophe  of  this  character,  while  Bensley  played 
it,  without  a  kind  of  tragic  interest.  There  was  good 
foolery  too.  Few  now  remember  Dodd.  What  an 
Aguecheek  the  stage  lost  in  him !  Lovegrove,  who 
came  nearest  to  the  old  actors,  revived  the  character 
some  few  seasons  ago,  and  made  it  sufficiently  gro- 
tesque ;  but  Dodd  was  it,  as  it  came  out  of  nature's 
hands.  It  might  be  said  to  remain  in  puris  7iatiiralihas. 
In  expressing  slowness  of  apprehension,  this  actor  sur- 
passed all  others.  You  could  see  the  first  dawn  of  an 
idea  stealing  slowly  over  his  countenance,  climbing  up 


ON   SOME    OF  THE    OLD   ACTOEiJ.  22'j 

by  little  and  little,  with  a  painful  process,  till  it  cleared 
up  at  last  to  the  fulness  of  a  twilight  conception  —  its 
highest  meridian.  He  seemed  to  keep  back  his  intel- 
lect, as  some  have  had  the  power  to  retard  their  pulsa- 
tion. The  balloon  takes  less  time  in  filling,  than  it  took 
to  cover  the  expansion  of  his  broad  moony  face  over  all 
its  quarters  with  expression.  A  glimmer  of  understand- 
ing would  appear  m  a  comer  of  his  eye,  and  for  lack  of 
fuel  go  out  again.  A  part  of  his  forehead  would  catch 
a  little  intelligence,  and  be  a  lono-  time  in  communicat- 
ino;  it  to  the  remainder. 

I  am  ill  at  dates,  but  I  think  it  is  now  better  than 
five-and-twenty  years  ago,  that  walking  in  the  gardens 
of  Gray's  Inn  —  they  were  then  far  finer  than  they  are 
now  —  the  accursed  Verulam  Buildings  had  not  en- 
croached upon  all  the  east  side  of  them,  cutting  out 
delicate  green  crankles,  and  shouldering  away  one  of 
two  of  the  stately  alcoves  of  the  terrace,  —  the  survivor 
stands  gaping  and  relationless  as  if  it  remembered  its 
brother,  —  they  are  still  the  best  gardens  of  any  of  the 
Inns  of  Court,  my  beloved  Temple  not  forgotten,  — 
have  the  gravest  character,  their  aspect  being  alto- 
gether reverend   and  law-breathing,  —  Bacon  has  left 

the  impress  of  his  foot  upon  their  gravel  walks  ; 

taking  my  afternoon  solace  on  a  summer  day  upon  the 
aforesaid  terrace,  a  comely,  sad  personage  came  towards 
me,  whom,  from  his  grave  air  and  deportment,  I  judged 
to  be  one  of  the  old  Benchers  of  the  Inn.  He  had  a 
serious  thoughtflil  forehead,  and  seemed  to  be  in  medi- 
tations of  mortality.  As  I  have  an  instmctive  awe  of 
old  Benchers,  I  was  passing  him  with  that  sort  of  sub- 
mdicative  token  of  respect  which  one  is  apt  to  demon- 
strate towards  a  venerable  stranger,  and  wliicb  rather 


230  ON   SOME    OF   THE   OLD   ACTORS. 

denotes  an  inclination  to  greet  him,  than  any  positive 
motion  of  the  body  to  that  effect,  —  a  species  of  humil- 
ity and  will-worship  which  I  observe,  nine  times  out  of 
ten,  rather  puzzles  than  pleases  the  person  it  is  offered 
to  —  when  the  face  turning  full  upon  me,  strangely 
identified  itself  with  that  of  Dodd.  Upon  close  inspec- 
tion I  was  not  mistaken.  But  could  this  sad,  thought- 
ful countenance  be  the  same  vacant  face  of  folly  which 
I  had  hailed  so  often  under  circumstances  of  gayety ; 
which  I  had  never  seen  without  a  smile,  or  recognized 
but  as  the  usher  of  mirth  ;  that  looked  out  so  formally 
flat  in  Foppington,  so  frothily  pert  in  Tattle,  so  impo- 
tently  busy  in  Backbite  ;  so  blankly  divested  of  all 
meaning,  or  resolutely  expressive  of  none,  in  Acres,  in 
Fribble,  and  a  thousand  agreeable  impertinences  ?  Was 
this  the  face,  —  full  of  thought  and  carefulness,  —  that 
had  so  often  divested  itself  at  will  of  eveiy  trace  of 
either  to  give  me  diversion,  to  clear  my  cloudy  face  for 
two  or  three  hours  at  least  of  its  furrows  ?  Was  this 
the  face  —  manly,  sober,  intelligent  —  which  I  had  so 
often  despised,  made  mocks  at,  made  merry  with  ?  The 
remembrance  of  the  freedoms  which  I  had  taken  with 
it  came  upon  me  with  a  reproach  of  insult.  I  could 
have  asked  it  pardon.  I  thought  it  looked  upon  me 
with  a  sense  of  injury.  There  is  something  strange  as 
well  as  sad  in  seeing  actors  —  your  pleasant  fellows 
particularly — subjected  to  and  suffering  the  common 
lot ;  their  fortunes,  their  casualties,  their  deaths,  seem 
io  belong  to  the  scene,  their  actions  to  be  amenable  tc 
poetic  justice  only.  We  can  hardly  connect  them  with 
more  awful  responsibilities.  The  death  of  this  fine 
actor  took  place  shortly  after  this  meeting.  He  had 
quitted   the    stage    some  months ;    and,    as    I    learned 


ON  SOME  OF  THE  OLD  ACTORS.        231 

afterwards,  had  been  in  the  habit  of  resorting  daily  to 
these  gardens  ahnost  to  the  day  of  his  decease.  In 
these  serious  walks  probably  he  was  divesting  himself 
of  many  scenic  and  some  real  vanities,  —  weaning  him- 
self from  the  fi-ivolities  of  the  lesser  and  the  greater 
theatre,  —  doing  gentle  penance  for  a  life  of  no  very 
reprehensible  fooleries,  —  taking  off  by  degrees  the 
buffoon  mask,  which  he  might  feel  he  had  worn  too 
long,  —  and  rehearsing  for  a  more  solemn  cast  of  part. 
Dying,  he  "  put  on  the  weeds  of  Dominic."  * 

If  few  can  remember  Dodd,  many  yet  living  will  not 
easily  forget  the  pleasant  creature,  who  in  those  days 
enacted  the  part  of  the  Clown  to  Dodd's  Sir  Andrew. 
Richard,  or  rather  Dicky  Suett,  —  for  so  in  his  lifetime 
he  delighted  to  be  called,  and  time  hath  ratified  the 
appellation,  —  lieth  buried  on  the  north  side  of  the 
cemetery  of  Holy  Paul,  to  whose  service  his  nonage 
and  tender  years  were  dedicated.  There  are  who  do 
yet  remember  him  at  that  period,  —  his  pipe  clear  and 
harmonious.  He  would  often  speak  of  his  chorister 
days,  when  he  was  "  cherub  Dicky." 

What  clipped  his  wings,  or  made  it  expedient  that 
he  should  exchange  the  holy  for  the  profane  state; 
whether  he  had  lost  his  good  voice  (his  best  recom- 
mendation to  that  office),  like  Sir  John,  "  with  halloo- 

*  Dodd  was  a  man  of  reading,  and  left  at  his  death  a  choice  collection 
of  old  English  literature.  I  shcjuld  judge  him  to  have  been  a  man  of  wit. 
I  know  one  instance  of  an  impromptu  which  no  length  of  study  could 
have  bettered.  My  merry  friend,  Jem  White,  had  seen  him  one  evening 
in  Aguecheek,  and  recognizing  Dodd  the  next  day  in  Fleet  Street,  was 
irresistibly  impelled  to  take  off  his  hat  and  salute  him  as  the  identical 
Knight  of  the  preceding  evening  with  a  "  Save  j'ou.  Sir  Amh-cic."  Dodd, 
not  at  all  disconcerted  at  this  imusual  address  from  a  stranger,  with  a 
courteous  half-rebuking  wave  of  tb**  hand,  put  him  off  with  au  "  Away. 
Fool." 


232        ON  SOME  OF  THE  OLD  ACTORS. 

ing  and  singing  of  anthems  ; "  or  whether  he  was 
adjudged  to  lack  something,  even  in  those  early  years, 
of  the  gravity  indispensable  to  an  occupation  Avhich 
professeth  to  "  commerce  with  the  skies,  "  —  I  could 
never  rightly  learn ;  but  we  find  him,  after  the  proba- 
tion of  a  twelvemonth  or  so,  reverting  to  a  secular  con- 
dition, and  become  one  of  us. 

I  think  he  was  not  altogether  of  that  timber  out  of 
which  cathedral  seats  and  sounding-boards  are  hewed. 
But  if  a  glad  heart  —  kind,  and  therefore  glad  —  be 
any  part  of  sanctity,  then  might  the  robe  of  Motley, 
with  which  he  invested  himself  with  so  much  humility 
after  his  deprivation,  and  which  he  wore  so  long  with 
so  much  blameless  satisfaction  to  himself  and  to  the 
public,  be  accepted  for  a  sm'plice,  —  his  white  stole  ana 
alhe. 

The  first  fruits  of  his  secularization  was  an  engage- 
ment upon  the  boards  of  Old  Drury,  at  which  theatre 
he  commenced,  as  I  have  been  told,  with  adopting  the 
manner  of  Parsons  in  old  men's  characters.  At  the 
period  in  which  most  of  us  knew  him,  he  was  no  more 
an  imitator  than  he  was  in  any  true  sense  liimself 
imitable. 

He  was  the  Robin  Goodfellow  of  the  stage.  He 
came  in  to  trouble  all  things  with  a  welcome  perplexity, 
himself  no  whit  troubled  for  the  matter.  He  was 
known,  like  Puck,  by  his  note,  —  Ra  !  Ha  !  Ha  !  — 
sometimes  deepening  to  Ho !  Ho !  Ho !  with  an 
irresistible  accession,  derived,  perhaps,  remotely  from 
his  ecclesiastical  education,  foreign  to  his  prototype  of, 
—  0  La !  Thousands  of  hearts  yet  respond  to  the 
chuckling  0  La!  of  Dicky  Suett,  brought  back  to 
then*  remembrance  by  the  faithful  transcript  of  Jiis  fiiend 


ON  SOME  OF  THE  OLD  ACTORS.        233 

Mathews's  mimicry.  The  "  force  of  nature  could  no 
further  go."  He  drolled  upon  the  stock  of  these  two 
syllables  richer  than  the  cuckoo. 

Care,  that  troubles  all  the  world,  was  forgotten  in 
his  composition.  Had  he  had  but  two  grains  (nay, 
half. a  grain)  of  it,  he  could  never  have  supported  him- 
self upon  those  two  spider's  strings,  which  served  him 
(in  the  latter  part  of  his  unmixed  existence)  as  legs. 
A  doubt  or  a  scruple  must  have  made  him  totter,  a 
sigh  have  puifed  him  down ;  the  weight  of  a  ft  own 
had  staggered  him,  a  wrinkle  made  him  lose  his  bal- 
ance. But  on  he  went,  scrambling  upon  those  airy 
stilts  of  his,  with  Robin  Goodfellow,  "  thorough  brake, 
thorough  briar,"  reckless  of  a  scratched  face  or  a  torn 
doublet. 

Shakspeare  foresaw  him,  when  he  framed  his  fools 
and  jesters.  They  have  all  the  true  Suett  stamp,  a 
loose  and  shambling  gait,  a  slippery  tongue,  this  last 
the  ready  midwife  to  a  without-pain-delivered  jest ;  in 
words,  light  as  air,  venting  truths  deep  as  the  centre ; 
with  idlest  rhymes  tagging  conceit  when  busiest,  sing- 
ing with  Lear  in  the  tempest,  or  Sir  Toby  at  the  but- 
tery-hatch. 

Jack  Bannister  and  he  had  the  fortune  to  be  more  of 
personal  favorites  with  the  town  than  any  actors  before 
or  after.  Tlie  difference,  I  take  it,  was  this  :  —  Jack 
was  more  beloved  for  his  sweet,  good-natured,  moral 
pretensions.  Dicky  was  more  liked  for  his  sweet,  good- 
natured,  no  pretensions  at  all.  Your  whole  conscience 
stiiTed  with  Bannister's  performance  of  Walter  in  the 
Children  in  the  Wood,  —  but  Dicky  seemed  like  a 
thing,  as  Shakspeare  says  of  Love,  too  young  to  know 
what   conscience   is.      He   put   us  into  Vesta's  days. 


234        ON  SOME  OF  THE  OLD  ACTORS 

Evil  fled  before  him,  —  not  as  from  Jack,  as  from  an 
antagonist,  —  but  because  it  could  not  touch  liim,  any 
more  than  a  cannon-ball  a  fly.  He  was  delivered 
from  the  burden  of  that  death ;  and,  when  death  came 
himself,  not  in  metaphor,  to  fetch  Dicky,  it  is  recorded 
of  him  by  Robert  Palmer,  who  kindly  watched  his  exit, 
that  he  received  the  last  stroke,  neither  varying  his 
Accustomed  tranquillity,  nor  tune,  with  the  simple  ex- 
clamation, worthy  to  have  been  recorded  in  his  epitaph 
—  OLa!     OLa!    Bohhy ! 

The  elder  Palmer  (of  stage-treading  celebrity)  com- 
monly played  Sir  Toby  in  those  days ;  but  there  is  a 
solidity  of  wit  in  the  jests  of  that  half-Falstaff"  which  he 
did  not  quite  fill  out.  He  was  as  much  too  showy  as 
Moody  (who  sometimes  took  the  part)  was  dry  and 
sottish.  In  sock  or  buskin  there  was  an  air  of  swag- 
gering gentility  about  Jack  Palmer.  He  was  a  gentle- 
man with  a  slight  infusion  of  the  footman.  His  brother 
Bob  (of  recenter  memory),  who  was  his  shadow  in 
everything  while  he  lived,  and  dwindled  into  less  than 
a  shadow  afterwards,  —  was  a  gentleman  with  a  little 
stronger  infusion  of  the  latter  ingredient ;  that  was  all. 
It  is  amazing  how  a  little  of  the  more  or  less  makes  a 
difference  in  these  things.  When  you  saw  Bobby  in  the 
Duke's  Servant,*  you  said,  "  What  a  pity  such  a  pretty 
fellow  was  only  a  servant !  "  When  you  saw  Jack 
figuring  in  Captain  Absolute,  you  thought  you  could 
trace  his  promotion  to  some  lady  of  quality  who  fancied 
the  handsome  fellow  in  his  topknot,  and  had  bought 
him  a  commission.  Therefore  Jack  in  Dick  Amlet  was 
insuperable. 

Jack  had   two   voices,  both   plausible,   hypocritical, 
*  High  Life  Below  Stairs. 


ON  SOME  OF  THE  OLD  ACTORS.        235 

and  Insinuating;  but  his  secondary  or  supplemental 
voice  still  more  decisively  histrionic  than  his  common 
one.  It  was  reserved  for  the  spectator  ;  and  the  dram-' 
Otis  personcB  were  supposed  to  know  nothing  at  all 
about  it.  The  lies  of  Young  Wilding,  and  the  senti- 
ments in  Joseph  Surface,  were  thus  marked  out  in  a 
sort  of  italics  to  the  audience.  This  secret  correspond- 
ence with  the  company  before  the  curtain  (which  is  the 
bane  and  death  of  tragedy)  has  an  extremely  happy 
effect  in  some  kinds  of  comedy,  in  the  more  liighly 
artificial  comedy  of  Congreve  or  of  Sheridan  espec- 
ially, where  the  absolute  sense  of  reality  (so  indispen- 
sable to  scenes  of  interest)  is  not  required,  or  would 
rather  interfere  to  diminish  your  pleasure.  The  fact  is, 
you  do  not  believe  in  such  characters  as  Surface,  —  the 
villain  of  artificial  comedy,  —  even  while  you  read  or 
see  them.  If  you  did,  they  would  shock  and  not  divert 
you.  When  Ben,  in  Love  for  Love,  returns  from  sea, 
the  following  exquisite  dialogue  occurs  at  his  first  meet- 
ing with  his  father : — 

Sir  Sampson.  Thou  hast  been  many  a  weary  league,  Ben,  since  I  saw 
thee. 

Ben.  Ey,  ey,  been  !  Been  far  enough,  an'  that  be  all.  —  Well,  father, 
and  how  do  all  at  home?  how  does  brother  Dick,  and  brother  Val? 

Sir  Sampson.  Dick!  body  o'  me,  Dick  has  been  dead  these  two  years. 
I  writ  you  word  when  j'ou  were  at  Leghorn. 

Ben.  Mess,  that's  true;  Marry,  I  had  forgot.  Dick's  dead,  as  you  say, 
—  well,  and  how  i*  —  1  have  a  many  questions  to  ask  you. 

Hei'e  is  an  instance  of  insensibility  which  in  real  lifa 
would  be  revolting,  or  rather  in  real  life  could  not  have 
coexisted  with  the  warm-hearted  temperament  of  the 
character.  But  when  you  read  it  in  the  spirit  with 
which  such  playful  selections  and  specious  combinations 
rather  than  strict  metaphrases  of  nature  should  be  taken, 


236        ON  SOME  OF  THE  OLD  ACTORS. 

or  when  you  saw  Bannister  play  it,  it  neither  did,  no* 
does,  wound  the  moral  sense  at  all.  For  what  is  Ben 
—  the  pleasant  sailor  which  Bannister  gives  us  —  but  a 
piece  of  satire,  —  a  creation  of  Congreve's  fancy, — a 
dreamy  combination  of  all  the  accidents  of  a  sailor's 
character,  —  his  contempt  of  money,  —  his  credulity 
to  women,  —  with  that  necessary  estrangement  from 
home  which  it  is  just  within  the  verge  of  credibility  to 
suppose  might  produce  such  an  hallucination  as  is  here 
described.  We  never  think  the  worse  of  Ben  for  it,  or 
feel  it  as  a  stain  upon  his  character.  But  when  an 
actor  comes,  and  instead  of  the  delightful  phantom  — 
the  creature  dear  to  half-belief —  w^hich  Bannister  ex- 
hibited, —  displays  befoi'e  our  eyes  a  downright  concre- 
tion of  a  Wapping  sailor  —  a  jolly  warm-hearted  Jack 
Tar  —  and  nothing  else  —  when,  instead  of  investing  it 
with  a  delicious  confusedness  of  the  head,  and  a  veer- 
ing undirected  goodness  of  purpose,  —  he  gives  to  it  a 
downright  daylight  understanding,  and  a  full  conscious- 
ness of  its  actions  ;  thrusting  forward  the  sensibilities 
of  the  character  with  a  pretence  as  if  it  stood  upon 
nothing  else,  and  was  to  be  judged  by  them  alone,  — 
we  feel  the  discord  of  the  thing ;  the  scene  is  dis- 
turbed ;  a  real  man  has  got  in  among  the  dramatu 
personce^  and  puts  them  out.  We  want  the  sailor 
turned  out.  We  feel  that  hif,  true  place  is  not  behind 
the  curtain,  but  in  the  first  or  second  gallery. 


THE  ARTIFICIAL  COMEDY  OF  THE  LAST  CENTURY.    237 


ON  THE   ARTIFICIAL   COMEDY   OF   THE  LAST 
CENTURY. 

The  artificial  Comedy,  or  Comedy  of  manners,  is 
quite  extinct  on  our  stage.  Congreve  and  Farquliai 
show  their  heads  once  in  seven  years  only,  to  be  ex- 
ploded and  put  down  instantly.  The  times  cannot 
bear  them.     Is  it  for  a  few  wild  speeches,  an  occasional 

license  of  chalogue  ?  I  think  not  altogether.     The  busi- 
er O- 

ness  of  their  dramatic  characters  will  not  stand  the 
moral  test.  We  screw  everything  up  to  that.  Idle 
gallantry  in  a  fiction,  a  dream,  the  passing  pageant  of 
an  evening,  startles  us  in  the  same  way  as  the  alarming 
indications  of  profligacy  in  a  son  or  ward  in  real  life 
should  startle  the  parent  or  guardian.  We  have  no  such 
middle  emotions  as  dramatic  interests  left.  We  see  a 
stage  libertine  playing  his  loose  pranks  of  two  hours' 
duration,  and  of  no  after  consequence,  with  the  severe 
eyes  which  inspect  real  vices  with  their  bearings  upon 
two  worlds.  We  are  spectators  to  a  plot  or  intrigue 
(not  reducible  in  life  to  the  point  of  strict  morality), 
and  take  it  all  for  truth.  We  substitute  a  real  for  a 
dramatic  person,  and  judge  him  accordingly.  We  try 
him  in  our  courts,  from  which  there  is  no  appeal  to 
the  dramatis  personce,  his  peers.  We  have  been  spoiled 
with  —  not  sentimental  comedy  —  but  a  tyrant  far 
more  pernicious  to  our  pleasures  which  has  succeeded 
to  it,  the  exclusive  and  all-devouring  drama  o^  common 
life ;  where  the  moral  point  is  eveiything ;  Aviiere,  in- 
stead of  the  fictitious  half-believed  personages  of  the 
stage  (the  phantoms  of  old  comedy),  we  recognize  our- 


238    THE  ARTIFICIAL  COMEDY  OF  THE  LAST  CENTURY. 

selves,  our  brothers,  aunts,  kinsfolk,  allies,  patrons, 
enemies,  —  the  same  as  in  life,  —  with  an  interest  in 
what  is  going  on  so  hearty  and  substantial,  that  we 
cannot  afford  our  moral  judgment,  in  its  deepest  and 
most  vital  results,  to  compromise  or  slumber  for  a 
moment.  What  is  there  transacting,  by  no  modification 
is  made  to  affect  us  m  any  other  manner  than  the  same 
events  or  characters  would  do  in  our  relationships  of 
life.  We  carry  our  fireside  concerns  to  the  theatre 
with  us.  We  do  not  go  thither,  like  our  ancestors,  to 
escape  from  the  pressure  of  reality,  so  much  as  to  con- 
firm our  experience  of  it ;  to  make  assurance  double, 
and  take  a  bond  of  fate.  We  must  live  our  toilsome 
lives  twice  over,  as  it  was  the  mournful  privilege  of 
Ulysses  to  descend  twice  to  the  shades.  All  that  neu- 
tral ground  of  character,  which  stood  between  vice  and 
virtue  ;  or  which  in  fact  was  indifferent  to  neither, 
where  neither  properly  Avas  called  in  question  ;  that 
happy  breathing-place  from  the  burden  of  a  perpetual 
moral  questioning  —  the  sanctuary  and  quiet  Alsatia  of 
hunted  casuistiy  —  is  broken  up  and  disfranchised,  as 
injurious  to  the  interests  of  society.  The  privileges  of 
the  place  are  taken  away  by  law.  We  dare  not  dally 
with  images,  or  names,  of  wrong.  We  bark  like  fool- 
ish doffs  at  shadows.  We  dread  infection  from  the 
scenic  representation  of  disorder,  and  fear  a  painted 
pustule.  In  our  anxiety  that  our  morality  should  not 
take  cold,  we  wrap  it  up  in  a  great  blanket  surtout  of 
precaution  against  the  breeze  and  sunshine. 

I  confess  for  myself  that  (with  no  great  delinquen- 
cies to  answer  for)  I  am  glad  for  a  season  to  take  an 
airing  beyond  the  diocese  of  the  strict  conscience,  — 
not  to  live  always  in  the  precincts  of  the  law-courts,  -^ 


THE  ARTIFICIAL  COMEDY  OF  THE  LAST  CENTURY.     239 

but  now  and  then,  for  a  dream-while  or  so,  to  imagine 
a  world  with  no  meddling  restrictions  —  to  get  into 
recesses,  whither  the  hunter  cannot  follow  me  — 


Secret  shades 
Of  woody  Ida's  inmost  grove, 
While  yet  there  was  no  fear  of  Jove. 

I  come  back  to  my  cage  and  my  restraint  the  fresher 
and  more  healthy  for  it.  I  wear  my  shackles  more 
contentedly  for  having  respired  the  breath  of  an  imag- 
inary freedom.  I  do  not  know  how  it  is  with  others, 
but  I  feel  the  better  always  for  the  perusal  of  one  of 
Congreve's  —  nay,  why  should  I  not  add  even  of 
Wycherley's  comedies.  I  am  the  gayer  at  least  for  it ; 
and  I  could  never  connect  those  sports  of  a  witty  fancy 
in  any  shape  with  any  result  to  be  drawn  from  them  to 
imitation  in  real  life.  They  are  a  Avorld  of  themselves 
almost  as  much  as  fairy-land.  Take  one  of  their  char- 
acters, male  or  female  (with  few  exceptions  they  are 
alike),  and  place  it  in  a  modern  play,  and  my  virtuous 
indignation  shall  rise  against  the  profligate  wretch  as 
warmly  as  the  Catos  of  the  pit  could  desire  ;  because  in 
a  modern  play  I  am  to  judge  of  the  right  and  the 
wrong.  The  standard  of  'police  is  the  measure  of  polit- 
ical justice.  The  atmosphere  will  blight  it,  it  cannot 
live  here.  It  has  got  into  a  moral  world,  where  it  has 
no  business,  from  which  it  must  needs  fall  headlong ;  as 
dizzy,  and  incapable  of  making  a  stand,  as  a  Sweden- 
borgian  bad  spirit  that  has  wandered  unawares  into  the 
sphere  of  one  of  his  Good  Men,  or  Angels.  But  in  its 
own  world  do  we  feel  the  creature  is  so  very  bad  ?  — 
The  Fainalls  and  the  Mirabells,  the  Dorimants  and  the 
Lady  Touchwoods,  in  their  own  sphere,  do  not  offend 


240    THE  ARTIFICIAL  COMEDY  OF  THE  LAST  CENTURY. 

my  moral  sense  ;  in  fact  they  do  not  appeal  to  it  at  all. 
They  seem  engaged  in  their  proper  element.  They 
break  through  no  laws,  or  conscientious  restraints. 
They  know  of  none.  They  have  got  out  of  Christen- 
dom into  the  land  —  what  shall  I  call  it?  —  of  cuck- 
oldry  —  the  Utopia  of  gallantry,  where  pleasure  is 
duty,  and  the  manners  perfect  freedom.  It  is  alto- 
gether a  speculative  scene  of  things,  which  has  no 
reference  whatever  to  the  world  that  is.  No  good 
person  can  be  justly  offended  as  a  spectator,  because  no 
good  person  suffers  on  the  stage.  Judged  morally, 
every  character  in  these  plays  —  the  few  exceptions 
only  are  mistakes  —  is  alike  essentially  vain  and  worth- 
less. The  great  art  of  Congreve  is  especially  shown  in 
this,  that  he  has  entirely  excluded  from  his  scenes,  — 
some  little  generosities  in  the  part  of  Angelica  perhaps 
excepted,  —  not  only  anything  like  a  faultless  char- 
acter, but  any  pretensions  to  goodness  or  good  feelings 
whatsoever.  Whether  he  did  this  designedly,  or  in- 
stinctively, the  effect  is  as  happy,  as  the  design  (if 
design)  was  bold.  I  used  to  wonder  at  the  strange 
power  which  his  Way  of  the  World  in  particular  pos- 
sesses of  interesting  you  all  along  in  the  pursuits  of 
characters,  for  whom  you  absolutely  care  nothing  — 
for  you  neither  hate  nor  love  his  personages  —  and  I 
think  it  is  owing  to  this  very  indifference  for  any,  that 
you  endure  the  whole.  He  has  spread  a  privation  of 
moral  light,  I  wUl  call  it,  rather  than  by  the  ugly  name 
of  palpable  darkness,  over  his  creations  ;  and  his 
shadows  flit  before  you  without  distinction  or  prefer- 
ence. Had  he  introduced  a  good  character,  a  single 
gusli  of  moral  feeling,  a  revulsion  of  the  judgment  to 
actual  life  and  actual  duties,  the  impertinent  Goshen 


THE  ARTIFICIAL  COMEDY  OF  THE  LAST  CENTURY.    241 

would  have  only  lighted  to  the  discovery  of  defonnities, 
which  now  are  none,  because  we  think  them  none. 

Translated  into  real  life,  the  characters  of  his,  and 
his  friend  Wycherley's  dramas,  are  profligates  and 
strumpets,  —  the  business  of  their  brief  existence,  the 
undivided  pursuit  of  lawless  gallantry.  No  other 
spring  of  action,  or  possible  motive  of  conduct,  is 
recognized ;  principles  which,  universally  acted  upon, 
must  reduce  this  frame  of  things  to  a  chaos.  But  we 
do  them  wrong  in  so  translating  them.  No  such 
effects  are  produced  in  their  world.  When  we  are 
among  them,  we  are  amongst  a  chaotic  people.  We 
are  not  to  judge  them  by  our  usages.  No  reverend 
institutions  are  insulted  by  their  proceedings  —  for 
they  have  none  among  them.  No  peace  of  families  is 
violated  —  for  no  family  ties  exist  among  them.  No 
purity  of  the  marriage  bed  is  stained  —  for  none  is 
supposed  to  have  a  being.  No  deep  affections  are 
disquieted,  no  holy  wedlock  bands  are  snapped  asunder 

—  for  affection's  depth  and  wedded  faith  are  not  of  the 
growth  of  that  soil.     There  is  neither  right  nor  wrong, 

—  gratitude  or  its  opposite,  —  claim  or  duty,  —  pater- 
nity or  sonship.  Of  what  consequence  is  it  to  Virtue, 
or  how  is  she  at  all  concerned  about  it,  whether  Sir 
Simon,  or  Dapperwit,  steal  away  Miss  Martha ;  or  who 
is  the  father  of  Lord  Froth's  or  Sir  Paul  Pliant's 
children. 

The  whole  is  a  passing  pageant,  where  we  should 
sit  as  unconcerned  at  the  issues,  for  life  or  death,  as  at  a 
battle  of  the  frogs  and  mice.  But,  like  Don  Quixote,  we 
take  part  against  the  puppets,  and  quite  as  impertinent- 
ly. We  dare  not  contemplate  an  Atlantis,  a  scheme, 
out  of  which  our  coxcombical  moral  sense  is  for  a  little 

VOL.  HI.  16 


242    THE  ARTIFICIAL  COMEDY  OF  THE  LAST  CENTURY. 

transitory  ease  excluded.  We  have  not  the  courage  to 
unagine  a  state  of  things  for  which  there  is  neither 
reward  nor  punishment.  We  cling  to  the  painM 
necessities  of  shame  and  blame.  We  would  indict 
our  very  dreams. 

Amidst  the  mortifying  circumstances  attendant  upon 
growing  old,  it  is  something  to  have  seen  the  School  for 
Scandal  in  its  glory.  This  comedy  grew  out  of  Con- 
greve  and  Wycherley,  but  gathered  some  allays  of  the 
sentimental  comedy  which  followed  theirs.  It  is  im- 
possible that  it  should  be  now  actedy  though  it  con- 
tinues, at  long  intervals,  to  be  announced  in  the  bills. 
Its  hero,  when  Pahner  played  it  at  least,  was  Joseph 
Surface.  When  I  remember  the  gay  boldness,  the 
graceful  solemn  plausibility,  the  measured  step,  the  in- 
sinuating voice,  —  to  express  it  in  a  Avord  —  the  down- 
right acted  villany  of  the  part,  so  different  from  the 
pressure  of  conscious  actual  wickedness,  —  the  hypo- 
critical assumption  of  hypocrisy,  —  which  made  Jack 
so  deservedly  a  favorite  in  that  character,  I  must  needs 
conclude  the  present  generation  of  play-goers  more 
virtuous  than  myself,  or  more  dense.  I  freely  confess 
that  he  divided  the  palm  with  me  with  his  better 
brother ;  that,  in  fact,  I  liked  him  quite  as  well.  Not 
but  there  are  passages,  —  like  that,  for  instance,  where 
Joseph  is  made  to  reftise  a  pittance  to  a  poor  relation, 
—  incongruities  which  Sheridan  was  forced  upon  by 
the  attempt  to  join  the  artificial  with  the  sentimental 
comedy,  either  of  which  must  destroy  the  other  —  but 
over  these  obstructions  Jack's  manner  floated  him  so 
lightly,  that  a  reftisal  from  him  no  more  shocked  you, 
than  the  easy  compliance  of  Charles  gave  you  in  real- 
ity any  pleasure ;   you  got  over  the  paltry  question  aa 


THE  ARTIFICIAL  COMEDY  OF  THE  LAST  CENTURY.    243 

quicklj  as  you  could,  to  get  back  into  the  regions  of 
pure  comedy,  where  no  cold  moral  reigns.  The  highly 
artificial  manner  of  Palmer  in  this  character  counter- 
acted every  disagreeable  impression  which  you  might 
have  received  fi'om  the  contrast,  supposing  them  real, 
between  the  two  brothers.  You  did  not  believe  in 
Joseph  with  the  same  faith  with  which  you  believed  in 
Charles.  The  latter  was  a  pleasant  reality,  the  former 
a  no  less  pleasant  poetical  foil  to  it.  The  comedy, 
I  have  said,  is  incongnious  ;  a  mixture  of  Congreve 
with  sentimental  incompatibilities ;  the  gayety  upon 
the  whole  is  buoyant ;  but  it  required  the  consummate 
art  of  Palmer  to  reconcile  the  discordant  elements. 

A  player  with  Jack's  talents,  if  we  had  one  now, 
would  not  dare  to  do  the  part  in  the  same  manner. 
He  would  instinctively  avoid  every  turn  which  might 
tend  to  unrealize,  and  so  to  make  the  character  fasci- 
nating. He  must  take  his  cue  from  his  spectators,  who 
would  expect  a  bad  man  and  a  good  man  as  rigidly 
opposed  to  each  other  as  the  death-beds  of  those 
geniuses  are  contrasted  in  the  prints,  which  I  am  soriy 
to  say  have  disappeared  from  the  windows  of  my  old 
friend  Carrington  Bowles,  of  St.  Paul's  Churchyard 
memory,  —  (an  exhibition  as  venerable  as  the  adjacent 
cathedral,  and  almost  coeval,)  of  the  bad  and  good  man 
at  the  hour  of  death  ;  where  the  ghastly  apprehensions 
of  the  former,  —  and  truly  the  grim  phantom  with  his 
reality  of  a  toasting-fork  is  not  to  be  despised,  —  so 
finely  contrast  with  the  meek  complacent  kissing  of  the 
rod,  —  taking  it  in  like  honey  and  butter,  —  with  which 
the  latter  submits  to  the  scythe  of  the  gentle  bleeder, 
Time,  who  wields  his  lancet  with  the  apprehensive 
finger  of  a  popular  young  ladies'  surgeon.     What  flesh, 


244    THE  ARTIFICIAL  COMEDY  OF  THE  LAST  CENTURY. 

like  loving  grass,  would  not  covet  to  meet  half-way  the 
stroke  of  such  a  delicate  mower  ?  —  John  Palmer  was 
twice  an  actor  in  this  exquisite  part.  He  was  playing 
to  you  all  the  while  that  he  was  playing  upon  Sir  Peter 
and  his  lady.  You  had  the  first  intimation  of  a  senti- 
ment before  it  was  on  his  lips.  His  altered  voice  was 
meant  to  you,  and  you  were  to  suppose  that  his  ficti- 
tious co-flutterers  on  the  stage  perceived  nothing  at  all 
of  it.  What  was  it  to  you  if  that  half  reality,  the  hus- 
band, was  overreached  by  the  puppetry  —  or  the  tliin 
thing  (Lady  Teazle's  reputation)  was  persuaded  it  was 
dying  of  a  plethory?  The  fortunes  of  Othello  and 
Desdemona  were  not  concerned  in  it.  Poor  Jack  has 
passed  from  the  stage  in  good  time,  that  he  did  not  live 
to  this  our  age  of  seriousness.  The  pleasant  old  Teazle 
Kiny^  too,  is  gone  in  good  time.  His  manner  would 
scarce  have  passed  current  in  our  day.  We  must  love 
or  hate,  —  acquit  or  condemn,  —  censure  or  pity,  — 
exert  our  detestable  coxcombry  of  moral  judgment 
upon  everything.  Joseph  Surface,  to  go  down  now, 
must  be  a  downright  revolting  villain,  —  no  compro- 
mise—  his  first  appearance  must  shock  and  give  hor- 
ror, —  Ins  specious  plausibilities,  which  the  pleasurable 
faculties  of  our  fathers  welcomed  with  such  hearty 
greetings,  knowing  that  no  harm  (dramatic  harm  even) 
could  come,  or  was  meant  to  come,  of  them,  must  in- 
spire a  cold  and  killing  aversion.  Charles  (the  real 
canting  person  of  the  scene,  —  for  the  hypocrisy  of 
Joseph  has  its  ulterior  legitimate  ends,  but  his  brother's 
professions  of  a  good  heart  centre  in  downright  self- 
satisfaction)  must  be  loved^  and  Joseph  hated.  To 
balance  one  disagreeable  reality  with  another.  Sir  Peter 
Teazle  must  be  no  longer  the  comic  idea  of  a  fretful  old 


THE  ARTIFICIAL  COMEDY  OF  THE  LAST  CENTURY.     245 

bachelor  bridegroom,  whose  teasings  (while  King  acted 
it)  were  evidently  as  much  played  off  at  you,  as  they 
were  meant  to  concern  anybody  on  the  stage,  —  he 
must  be  a  real  person,  capable  in  law  of  sustairJng  an 
injury,  —  a  person  towards  whom,  duties  are  to  be  ac- 
knowledged,—  the  genuine  crim.  con.  antagonist  of 
the  villanous  seducer  Joseph.  To  realize  him  more, 
his  sufferings  under  his  unfortunate  match  must  have 
the  downright  pungency  of  life,  —  must  (or  should) 
make  you  not  mirthful  but  uncomfortable,  just  as  the 
same  predicament  would  move  you  in  a  neighbor  or 
old  friend.  The  dehcious  scenes  which  give  the  play 
its  name  and  zest,  must  affect  you  in  the  same  serious 
manner  as  if  you  heard  the  reputation  of  a  dear  female 
friend  attacked  in  your  real  presence.  Crabtree  and 
Sir  Benjamin  —  those  poor  snakes  that  live  but  in  the 
sunshine  of  your  mirth  —  must  be  ripened  by  this  hot- 
bed process  of  realization  into  asps  or  amphisboenas ; 
and  Mrs.  Candour  —  O  !  frightful !  —  become  a  hooded 
serpent.  Oh  !  who  that  remembers  Parsons  and  Dodd, 
—  the  wasp  and  butterfly  of  the  Scliool  for  Scandal,  — 
in  those  two  characters ;  and  charming  natural  Miss 
Pope,  the  perfect  gentlewoman,  as  distinguished  from 
the  fine  lady  of  comedy,  in  this  latter  part,  —  would 
forego  the  true  scenic  delight,  —  the  escape  from  life,  — 
the  oblivion  of  consequences,  —  the  holiday  barring  out 
of  the  pedant  Reflection,  —  those  Saturnalia  of  two  or 
three  brief  hours,  well  won  from  the  world,  —  to  sit 
instead  at  one  of  our  modern  plays,  —  to  have  his 
coward  conscience  (that  forsooth  must  not  be  left  for 
a  moment)  stimulated  with  perpetual  appeals,  —  dulled 
rather,  and  blunted,  as  a  faculty  without  repose  miist 
be,  —  and  his  moral  vanity  pampered  with  images  of 


24G    THE  ARTIFICIAL  COMEDY  OF  THE  LAST  CENTURY, 

notional  justice,  notional  beneficence,  lives  saved  with- 
out the  spectator's  risk,  and  fortunes  given  away  that 
cost  the  author  nothing  ? 

No  piece  was,  perhaps,  ever  so  completely  cast  in 
all  its  parts  as  this  manager's  comedy.  Miss  Farren 
had  succeeded  to  Mrs.  Abington  in  Lady  Teazle  ;  and 
Smith,  the  original  Charles,  had  retired  when  I  first 
saw  it.  The  rest  of  the  characters,  with  very  slight 
exceptions,  remained.  I  remember  it  was  then  the 
fashion  to  cry  down  John  Kemble,  who  took  the  part 
of  Charles  after  Smith  ;  but,  I  thought,  very  unjustly. 
Smith,  I  fancy,  was  more  airy,  and  took  the  eye  with 
a  certain  gayety  of  person.  He  brought  with  him  no 
sombre  recollections  of  tragedy.  He  had  not  to  expiate 
the  fault  of  having  pleased  beforehand  in  lofty  decla- 
mation. He  had  no  sins  of  Hamlet  or  of  Richard  to 
atone  for.  His  failure  in  these  parts  was  a  passport  to 
success  in  one  of  so  opposite  a  tendency.  But,  as  far 
as  I  could  judge,  the  weighty  sense  of  Kemble  made  up 
for  more  personal  incapacity  than  he  had  to  answer  for. 
His  harshest  tones  in  this  part  came  steeped  and  dul- 
cified in  good-humor.  He  made  his  defects  a  grace. 
His  exact  declamatory  manner,  as  he  managed  it,  only 
served  to  convey  the  points  of  his  dialogue  with  more 
precision.  It  seemed  to  head  the  shafts  to  carry  them 
deeper.  Not  one  of  his  sparkling  sentences  was  lost. 
I  remember  minutely  how  he  delivered  each  in  succes- 
sion, and  cannot  by  any  effort  imagine  how  any  of  them 
could  be  altered  for  the  better.  No  man  could  deliver 
brilliant  dialogue,  —  the  dialogue  of  Congreve  or  of 
Wycherley,  —  because  none  understood  it,  —  half  so 
well  as  John  Kemble.  His  Valentine,  in  Love  for 
Love,  was,  to  my  recollection,  faultless.     He  flagged 


ON  THE  ACTING   OF   MUNDEN.  247 

sometimes  in  the  intervals  of  tragic  passion.  He  Tvould 
slumber  over  the  level  parts  of  an  heroic  character. 
His  Macbeth  has  been  known  to  nod.  But  he  always 
seemed  to  me  to  be  particularly  aMve  to  pointed  and 
witty  dialogue.  The  relaxing  levities  of  tragedy  have 
not  been  touched  by  any  since  him,  —  the  playful 
court-bred  spirit  in  which  he  condescended  to  the 
players  in  Hamlet,  —  the  sportive  relief  which  he 
threw  into  the  darker  shades  of  Richard,  —  disap- 
peared with  him.  He  had  his  sluggish  moods,  his 
torpors,  —  but  they  were  the  halting-stones  and  rest- 
ing-place of  his  tragedy,  —  politic  savings,  and  fetches 
of  the  breath,  —  husbandry  of  the  lungs,  where  nature 
pointed  him  to  be  an  economist,  —  rather,  I  think, 
than  errors  of  the  judgment.  They  were,  at  worst, 
less  painful  than  the  eternal  tormenting  unappeasable 
vigilance,  —  the  "  lidless  dragon  eyes,"  of  present 
fashionable  tragedy. 


ON  THE  ACTING  OF  MUNDEN. 

Not  many  nights  ago,  I  had  come  home  from  seeing 
this  extraordinary  performer  in  Cockletop  ;  and  when 
I  retired  to  my  pillow,  his  whimsical  image  still  stuck 
by  me,  m  a  manner  as  to  threaten  sleep.  In  vam  I 
tried  to  divest  myself  of  it,  by  conjuring  up  the  most 
opposite  associations.  I  resolved  to  be  serious.  I  raised 
up  the  gravest  topics  of  life  ;  private  misery,  public 
calamity.     All  would  not  do ; 


248  ON  THE   ACTING   OF   MUNDEN. 

There  the  antic  sate 
Mocking  our  state 

his  queer  visnomy — his  bewildering  costume  —  all  the 
strange  tilings  which  he  had  raked  together,  —  his 
serpentine  roi,  swagging  about  in  his  pocket,  —  Cleo- 
patra's tear,  and  the  rest  of  his  relics,  —  O'Keefe's  wild 
farce,  and  his  wilder  commentary,  —  till  the  passion  of 
laughter,  hke  grief  in  excess,  relieved  itself  by  its  own 
weight,  mviting  the  sleep  wliich  in  the  first  instance  it 
had  driven  away. 

But  I  was  not  to  escape  so  easily.  No  sooner  did  I 
fall  mto  slumbers,  than  the  same  image,  only  more  per- 
plexing, assailed  me  in  the  shape  of  dreams.  Not  one 
Munden,  but  five  hundred,  were  dancing  before  me, 
like  the  faces  which,  whether  you  will  or  no,  come 
when  you  have  been  taking  opium,  —  all  the  strange 
combinations,  which  this  strangest  of  all  strange  mortals 
ever  shot  liis  proper  countenance  into,  from  the  day  he 
came  commissioned  to  dry  up  t'he  tears  of  the  town  for 
the  loss  of  the  now  almost  forgotten  Edwin.  O  for  the 
power  of  the  pencil  to  have  fixed  them  when  I  awoke  I 
A  season  or  two  since,  there  was  exhibited  a  Hogarth 
galleiy.  I  do  not  see  why  there  should  not  be  a  Mun- 
den gallery.  In  richness  and  variety,  the  latter  would 
not  fall  far  short  of  the  former. 

There  is  one  face  of  Farley,  one  face  of  Knight,  one 
(but  what  a  one  it  is ! )  of  Liston ;  but  ISIunden  has 
none  that  you  can  properly  pin  down,  and  call  his. 
When  you  think  he  has  exhausted  his  battery  of  looks, 
in  unaccountable  warfare  with  your  gravity,  suddenly 
he  sprouts  out  an  entu'ely  new  set  of  features,  hke 
Hydra.  He  is  not  one,  but  legion ;  not  so  much  a 
comedian,  as  a  company.     If  liis  name  could  be  multi- 


ON  THE  ACTING   OF  MUNDEN.  249 

plied  liked  his  countenance,  it  might  fill  a  playbill. 
He,  and  he  alone,  literally  makes  faces  ;  applied  to  any 
other  person,  the  phrase  is  a  mere  figui'e,  denoting 
certain  modifications  of  the  human  countenance.  Out 
of  some  invisible  wardrobe  he  dips  for  faces,  as  his 
friend  Suett  used  for  wigs,  and  fetches  them  out  as 
easily.  I  should  not  be  surprised  to  see  him  some 
day  put  out  the  head  of  a  river-horse  ;  or  come  forth 
a  pewit,  or  lapwing,  some  feathered  metamorphosis. 

I  have  seen  this  gifted  actor  in  Sir  Christopher 
Curry  —  in  old  Domton  —  diffuse  a  glow  of  sentiment 
which  has  made  the  pulse  of  a  crowded  theatre  beat 
like  that  of  one  man ;  when  he  has  come  in  aid  of  the 
pulpit,  doing  good  to  the  moral  heart  of  a  people.  I 
have  seen  some  faint  approaches  to  this  sort  of  excel- 
lence in  other  players.  But  in  the  grand  grotesque 
of  farce,  Munden  stands  out  as  single  and  unaccom- 
panied as  Hogarth.  Hogarth,  strange  to  tell,  had  no 
followers.  The  school  of  Munden  began,  and  must 
end,  with  himself. 

Can  any  man  wonder^  like  him  ?  can  any  man  see 
ghosts,  like  him  ?  or  fight  with  his  own  shadow  — 
*'  SESSA  "  —  as  he  does  in  that  strangely-neglected 
thing,  the  Cobbler  of  Preston  —  where  his  alternations 
from  the  Cobbler  to  the  Magnifico,  and  from  the  Mag- 
nifico  to  the  Cobbler,  keep  the  brain  of  the  spectator 
in  as  wild  a  ferment,  as  if  some  Arabian  Night  were 
being  acted  before  him.  Who  like  him  can  throw, 
or  ever  attempted  to  throw,  a  preternatural  interest 
over  the  commonest  daily-life  objects  ?  A  table  or  a 
joint-stool,  in  his  conception,  rises  into  a  dignity  equiv- 
alent to  Cassiopeia's  chair.  It  is  invested  with  con- 
Btellatorv  importance.     You  could  not  speak  of  it  with 


250  ON  THE  ACTING   OF   MUNDEN. 

more  deference,  if  it  were  mounted  into  the  firmament. 
A  beggar  in  the  hands  of  Michael  Angelo,  says  Fuseli, 
rose  the  Patriarch  of  Poverty.  So  the  gusto  of  Mun- 
den  antiquates  and  ennobles  what  it  touches.  His  pots 
and  his  ladles  are  as  grand  and  primal  as  the  seething- 
pots  and  hooks  seen  in  old  prophetic  vision.  A  tub  of 
butter,  contemplated  by  him,  amounts  to  a  Platonic 
idea.  He  understands  a  leg  of  mutton  in  its  quiddity. 
He  stands  wondermg,  amid  the  commonplace  materials 
of  life,  like  primeval  man  with  the  sun  and  stars  about 
kim. 


THE 

LAST  ESSAYS   OF  ELIA. 


PREFACE. 

BY  A  FRIEND  OF  THE  LATE  EUA. 


This  poor  gentleman,  who  for  some  months  past  had  been  in  a 
declining  way,  hath  at  length  paid  his  final  tribute  to  nature. 

To  say  truth,  it  is  time  he  were  gone.  The  humor  of  the 
thing,  if  there  ever  was  much  in  it,  was  pretty  well  exhausted ; 
and  a  two  years'  and  a  half  existence  has  been  a  tolerable  dura- 
tion for  a  phantom. 

I  am  now  at  liberty  to  confess,  that  much  which  I  have  heard 
objected  to  my  late  friend's  writmgs  was  well  founded.  Crude 
they  are,  I  grant  you  —  a  sort  of  unlicked,  incondite  things  — 
villanously  pranked  in  an  affected  array  of  antique  modes  and 
phrases.  They  had  not  been  his,  if  they  had  been  other  than 
such ;  and  better  it  is,  that  a  writer  should  be  natural  in  a  self- 
pleasing  quaintness,  than  to  affect  a  naturalness  (so  called)  that 
should  be  strange  to  him.  Egotistical  they  have  been  pronounced 
by  some  who  did  not  know,  that  what  he  tells  us,  as  of  himself, 
was  often  true  only  (historically)  of  another;  as  in  a  former 
Essay  (to  save  many  instances)  —  where  under  the  Jirst  person 
(his  favorite  figure)  he  shadows  forth  the  forlorn  estate  of  a 
country  boy  placed  at  a  London  school,  far  from  his  friends  and 
connections,  —  in  direct  opposition  to  his  own  early  history.  If 
it  be  egotism  to  imply  and  twine  with  his  own  identity  the  gnefi 


254  PREFACE. 

and  affections  of  another  —  making  himself  many,  or  reducing 
many  unto  himself — then  is  the  skilful  novelist,  who  all  along 
brings  in  his  hero  or  heroine,  speaking  of  themselves,  the  greatest 
egotist  of  all ;  who  yet  has  never,  therefore,  been  accused  of  that 
narrowness.  And  how  shall  the  intenser  dramatist  escape  being 
faulty,  who,  doubtless,  under  cover  of  passion  uttered  by  another, 
oftentimes  gives  blameless  vent  to  his  most  inward  feelings,  and 
expresses  his  own  story  modestly  ? 

My  late  friend  was  in  many  respects  a  singular  character. 
Those  who  did  not  like  him,  hated  him;  and  some,  who  once 
liked  him,  afterwards  became  his  bitterest  haters.  The  truth  is, 
he  gave  himself  too  little  concern  what  he  uttered,  and  in  whose 
presence.  He  observed  neither  time  nor  place,  and  would  e'en 
out  with  what  came  uppennost.  With  the  severe  religionist  he 
would  pass  for  a  free-thinker;  while  the  other  faction  set  him 
down  for  a  bigot,  or  persuaded  themselves  that  he  behed  his  senti- 
ments. Few  understood  him ;  and  I  am  not  certain  that  at  all 
times  he  quite  understood  himself  He  too  much  affected  that 
dangerous  figure  —  irony.  He  sowed  doubtful  speeches,  and 
reaped  plain,  unequivocal  hatred.  He  would  interrupt  the  gravest 
discussion  with  some  hght  jest ;  and  yet,  perhaps,  not  quite  irrele- 
vant in  ears  that  could  understand  it.  Your  long  and  much 
talkers  hated  him.  The  informal  habit  of  his  mind,  joined  to  an 
inveterate  impediment  of  speech,  forbade  him  to  be  an  orator; 
and  he  seemed  determined  that  no  one  else  should  play  that  part 
when  he  was  present.  He  was  petit  and  ordinary  in  his  person 
and  appearance.  I  have  seen  him  sometimes  in  what  is  called 
good  company,  but  where  he  has  been  a  stranger,  sit  silent,  and  be 
suspected  for  an  odd  fellow ;  till  some  unlucky  occasion  provoking 
it,  he  would  stutter  out  some  senseless  pun  (not  altogether  senseless 
perhaps,  if  rightly  taken),  which  has  stamped  his  character  for  the 
evening.  It  was  hit  or  miss  with  him  ;  but  nine  times  out  of  ten, 
he  contrived  by  this  device  to  send  away  a  whole  company  hia 


PREFACE.  255 

enemies.  His  conceptions  rose  kindlier  than  his  utterance,  and 
his  happiest  impromptus  had  the  appearance  of  effort.  He  has 
been  accused  of  trjing  to  be  witty,  when  in  truth  he  was  but 
Btruggling  to  give  his  poor  thoughts  articulation.  He  chose  his 
companions  for  some  individuality  of  character  which  they  mani- 
fested. Hence,  not  many  persons  of  science,  and  few  professed 
literati,  were  of  his  councils.  They  were,  for  the  most  part,  per- 
sons of  an  uncertain  fortune ;  and,  as  to  such  people  commonly 
nothing  is  more  obnoxious  than  a  gentleman  of  settled  (though 
moderate)  income,  he  passed  with  most  of  them  for  a  great  miser. 
To  my  knowledge  this  was  a  mistake.  His  intimados,  to  confess  a 
truth,  were  in  the  world's  eye  a  ragged  regiment.  He  found 
them  floating  on  the  surface  of  society ;  and  the  color,  or  some- 
thing else,  in  the  weed  pleased  him.  The  burrs  stuck  to  him  — 
but  they  were  good  and  loving  burrs  for  all  that.  He  never 
greatly  cared  for  the  society  of  what  are  called  good  people.  If 
any  of  these  were  scandalized  (and  offences  were  sure  to  arise), 
he  could  not  help  it.  When  he  has  been  remonstrated  with  for 
not  making  more  concessions  to  the  feelings  of  good  people,  he 
would  retort  by  asking,  what  one  point  did  these  good  people 
ever  concede  to  him  ?  He  was  temperate  in  his  meals  and  diver- 
sions, but  always  kept  a  little  on  this  side  of  abstemiousness.  Only 
in  the  use  of  the  Indian  weed  he  might  be  thought  a  little  ex- 
cessive. He  took  it,  he  would  say,  as  a  solvent  of  speech.  Marry 
—  as  the  friendly  vapor  ascended,  how  his  prattle  would  curl  up 
sometimes  with  it !  the  ligaments  which  tongue-tied  him,  were  loos- 
ened, and  the  stammerer  proceeded  a  statist  1 

I  do  not  know  whether  I  ought  to  bemoan  or  rejoice  that  my 
old  friend  is  departed.  His  jests  were  beginning  to  grow  ob- 
solete, and  his  stories  to  be  found  out.  He  felt  the  approaches 
of  age ;  and  while  he  pretended  to  cling-  to  life,  you  saw  how 
slender  were  the  ties  left  to  bind  him.  Discoursing  with  him 
latterly  on  this  subject,  he  expressed  himself  with  a  pettishness, 


256  PREFACE. 

which  I  thought  unworthy  of  hun.  In  our  walks  about  his  suD- 
urban  retreat  (as  he  called  it)  at  Shacklewell,  some  children 
belonging  to  a  school  of  industry  had  met  us,  and  bowed  and 
curtseyed,  as  he  thought,  in  an  especial  manner  to  him.  "  They 
take  me  for  a  visiting  governor,"  he  muttered  earnestly.  He 
had  a  horror,  which  he  carried  to  a  foible,  of  looking  like  any- 
thing important  and  parochial.  He  thought  that  he  approached 
nearer  to  that  stamp  daily.  He  had  a  general  aversion  from 
being  treated  like  a  grave  or  respectable  character,  and  kept  a 
wary  eye  upon  the  advances  of  age  that  should  so  entitle  him. 
He  herded  always,  while  it  was  possible,  with  people  younger 
than  himself.  He  did  not  conform  to  the  march  of  time,  but  was 
dragged  along  in  the  procession.  His  manners  lagged  behind  his 
years.  He  was  too  much  of  the  boy-man.  The  toga  virilis  never 
sat  gracefully  on  his  shoulders.  The  impressions  of  infancy  had 
burnt  into  him,  and  he  resented  the  impertinence  of  manhood. 
These  were  weaknesses  ;  but  such  as  they  were,  they  are  a  key  to 
explicate  some  of  his  writings. 


THE  LAST  ESSAYS   OF  ELIA. 


BLAKESMOOR  IN  H SHIRE. 

I  DO  not  know  a  pleasvire  more  affecting  than  to 
iange  at  will  over  the  deserted  apartments  of  some  fine 
old  family  mansion.  The  traces  of  extinct  grandeur 
admit  of  a  better  passion  than  envy ;  and  contempla- 
tions on  the  great  and  good,  whom  we  fancy  in  succes- 
lion  to  have  been  its  inhabitants,  weave  for  us  illusions, 
^compatible  with  the  bustle  of  modem  occupancy,  and 
/anities  of  foolish  present  aristocracy.  The  same  dif- 
ference of  feeling,  I  think,  attends  us  between  entering 
an  empty  and  a  crowded  church.  In  the  latter  it  is 
chance  but  some  present  human  frailty,  —  an  act  oi 
inattention  on  the  part  of  some  of  the  auditory,  —  or  ( 
trait  of  affectation,  or  worse,  vainglory  on  that  of  th«i 
preacher,  —  puts  us  by  our  best  thoughts,  disharmo- 
nizing the  place  and  the  occasion.  But  wouldst  thou 
know  the  beauty  of  holiness  ?  —  go  alone  on  some 
weekday,  borrowing  the  keys  of  good  Master  Sexton, 
traverse  the  cool  aisles  of  some  country  church ;  think 
of  the  piety  that  has  kneeled  there,  —  the  congrega- 
tions, old  and  young,  that  have  found  consolation  there, 
—  the  meek  pastor,  —  the  docile  parishioner.  With 
no  disturbing  emotions,  no  cross  conflictmg  compari- 

^OL.   III.  17 


258  BLAKESMOOR  IN  H SHIRE. 

sons,  drink  in  the  tranquillity  of  the  place,  till  thou 
thyself  become  as  fixed  and  motionless  as  the  marble 
effigies  that  kneel  and  weep  around  thee. 

Journeying  northward  lately,  I  could  not  resist 
going  some  few  miles  out  of  my  road  to  look  upon 
the  remains  of  an  old  great  house  with  which  I  had 
been  impressed  in  this  way  in  mfancy.  I  was  appiised 
that  the  owner  of  it  had  lately  pulled  it  down  ;  still  I 
had  a  vague  notion  that  it  could  not  all  have  perished, 
that  so  much  solidity  with  magnificence  could  not  have 
been  crushed  all  at  once  into  the  mere  dust  and  rubbish 
wliich  I  found  it. 

The  work  of  ruin  had  proceeded  with  a  swift  hand 
indeed,  and  the  demolition  of  a  few  weeks  had  reduced 
it  to  —  an  antiquity. 

I  was  astonished  at  the  indistinction  of  everything. 
Where  had  stood  the  great  gates  ?  What  bounded 
the  court-yard  ?  Whereabout  did  the  outhouses  com- 
mence ?  A  few  bricks  only  lay  as  representatives  of 
that  which  was  so  stately  and  so  spacious. 

Death  does  not  shrink  up  his  human  victim  at  this 
rate.  The  burnt  ashes  of  a  man  weigh  more  in  their 
proportion. 

Had  I  seen  these  brick-and-mortar  knaves  at  their 
process  of  destruction,  at  the  plucking  of  every  panel  I 
should  have  felt  the  varlets  at  my  heart.  I  should 
have  cried  out  to  them  to  spare  a  plank  at  least  out  of 
the  cheerful  storeroom,  in  whose  hot  window-seat  I 
used  to  sit  and  read  Cowley,  with  the  grass-plot  before, 
and  the  hum  and  flappings  of  that  one  solitary  wasp 
that  ever  haunted  it  about  me,  —  it  is  in  mine  ears 
now,  as  oft  as  summer  retm'ns ;  or  a  panel  of  the 
yellow-room. 


BLAKESMOOR   IN   H SHIRE.  259 

Why,  every  plank  and  panel  of  that  house  for  me 
had  magic  in  it.  The  tapestried  bedrooms,  —  tapestry 
so  much  better  than  painting  —  not  adorning  merely, 
but  peopling  the  wainscots,  —  at  which  childhood  ever 
and  anon  would  steal  a  look,  shifting  its  coverlid  (re- 
placed as  quickly)  to  exercise  its  tender  courage  in 
a  momentary  eye-encounter  with  those  stem  bright 
visages,  staring  reciprocally,  —  all  Ovid  on  the  walls, 
in  colors  vivider  than  his  descriptions.  Action  in  mid 
sprout,  with  the  unappeasable  prudery  of  Diana ;  and 
the  still  more  provoking,  and  almost  culinary  coolness 
of  Dan  Phoebus,  eel-fashion,  deliberately  divesting  of 
Marsyas. 

Then,  that  haunted  room  —  in  which  old  Mrs. 
Battle  died,  —  whereinto  I  have  crept,  but  always  in 
the  daytime,  with  a  passion  of  fear;  and  a  sneaking 
curiosity,  teiTor-tainted,  to  hold  communication  with 
the  past.     Sow  shall  they  build  it  up  again? 

It  was  an  old  deserted  place,  yet  not  so  long  deserted 
but  that  traces  of  the  splendor  of  past  inmates  were 
everywhere  apparent.     Its  ftirniture  was  still  standing 

—  even  to  the  tarnished  gilt  leather  battledores,  and 
crumbling  feathers  of  shuttlecocks  in  the  nursery, 
which  told  that  children  had  once  played  there.  But 
I  was  a  lonely  child,  and  had  the  range  at  will  of 
every  apartment,  knew  every  nook  and  comer,  won- 
dered and  worshipped  everywhere. 

The  solitude  of  childhood  is  not  so  much  the  mother 
of  thought,  as  it  is  the  feeder  of  love,  and  silence,  and 
admiration.  So  strange  a  passion  for  the  place  pos- 
sessed me  in  those  years,  that,  though  there  lay  —  I 
shame  to  say  how  few  roods  distant  from  the  mansion 

—  half  hid  by  trees  what  I  judged  some  romantic  lake, 


260  BLAKESMOOR  IN  H SHIRE. 

such  was  the  spell  which  bound  me  to  the  house,  ano 
such  my  carefulness  not  to  pass  its  strict  and  proper 
precincts,  that  the  idle  waters  lay  unexplored  for  me ; 
and  not  till  late  in  life,  curiosity  prevailing  over  elder 
devotion,  I  found,  to  my  astonishment,  a  pretty  brawl- 
ing brook  had  been  the  Lacus  Incognitus  of  my  infancy. 
Variegated  views,  extensive  prospects,  —  and  those  at 
no  great  distance  from  the  house,  —  I  was  told  of  such 
—  what  were  they  to  me,  being  out  of  the  boundaries 
of  my  Eden  ?  —  So  far  from  a  wish  to  roam,  I  would 
have  drawn,  methought,  still  closer  the  fences  of  my 
chosen  prison  ;  and  have  been  hemmed  in  by  a  yet 
securer  cincture  of  those  excluding  garden  walls.  I 
could  have  exclaimed  with  that  garden-loving  poet  — 

Bind  me,  ye  woodbines,  in  your  twines; 
Curl  me  about,  ye  gadding  vines; 
And  oh  so  close  your  circles  lace, 
That  I  may  never  leave  this  place; 
But,  lest  your  fetters  prove  too  weak, 
Ere  I  yovu-  silken  bondage  break. 
Do  you,  0  brambles,  chain  me  too. 
And,  courteous  briars,  nail  me  through. 

I  was  here  as  in  a  lonely  temple.  Snug  firesides,  — 
the  low-built  roof,  —  parlors  ten  feet  by  ten,  —  frugal 
boards,  and  all  the  homeliness  of  home,  —  these  were 
the  condition  of  my  birth,  —  the  wholesome  soil  which 
I  was  planted  in.  Yet,  without  impeachment  to  their 
tenderest  lessons,  I  am  not  sorry  to  have  had  glances  of 
something  beyond ;  and  to  have  taken,  if  but  a  peep, 
in  childhood,  at  the  contrasting  accidents  of  a  great 
fortune. 

To  have  the  feeling  of  gentility,  it  is  not  necessary  to 
have  been  born  gentle.  The  pride  of  ancestry  may  be 
had  on  cheaper  terms  than  to  be  obliged  to  an  importu 


BLAKESMOOR  IN   H SHIRE.  261 

nate  race  of  ancestors ;  and  the  coatless  antiquary  in 
his  unemblazoned  cell,  revolving  the  long  line  of  a 
Mowbray's  or  De  Clifford's  pedigree,  at  those  sounding 
names  may  warm  himself  into  as  gay  a  vanity  as  these 
who  do  inherit  them.  The  claims  of  birth  are  ideal 
merely,  and  what  herald  shall  go  about  to  strip  me  of 
an  idea  ?  Is  it  trenchant  to  their  swords  ?  can  it  be 
hacked  off  as  a  spur  can  ?  or  torn  away  like  a  tar- 
nished garter  ? 

What  else  were  the  families  of  the  great  to  us  ?  ^vhat 
pleasure  should  we  take  in  their  tedious  genealogies,  or 
their  capitulatory  brass  monuments  ?  What  to  us  the 
unmterrupted  curi^ent  of  their  bloods,  if  our  own  did 
not  answer  witlun  us  to  a  cognate  and  correspondent 
elevation  ? 

Or  wherefore  else,  O  tattered  and  diminished 
'scutcheon  that  hung  upon  the  time-worn  walls  of 
thy  princely  stairs,  Blakesmoor  !  have  I  in  child- 
hood so  oft  stood  poring  upon  the  mystic  characters, 
■ — thy  emblematic  supporters,  with  their  prophetic 
"  Resurgam,"  —  till,  every  dreg  of  peasantry  purging 
off,  I  received  into  myself  Very  Gentility  ?  Thou 
wert  first  in  my  morning  eyes  ;  and  of  nights  hast 
detained  my  steps  from  bedward,  till  it  was  but  a 
step  from  gazing  at  thee  to  dreaming  on  thee. 

This  is  the  only  true  gentiy  by  adoption ;  the 
veritable  change  of  blood,  and  not,  as  empirics  haver 
fabled,  by  transfusion. 

Who  it  was  by  dying  that  had  earned  the  splendid 
trophy,  I  know  not,  I  inquired  not;  but  its  fading 
rags,  and  colors  cobweb-stained,  told  that  its  subject 
was  of  two  centm'ies  back. 

And  what  if  my  ancestor  at   that  date  was   some 


262  BLAKESMOOR  IN  H SHIRE, 

Damoetas,  —  feeding  flocks  —  not  his  own,  upon  the 
hills  of  Lincoln,  —  did  I  in  less  earnest  vhidicate  to 
myself  the  family  trappings  of  this  once  proud  jEgon  ? 
repaying  by  a  backward  triumph  the  insults  he  might 
possibly  have  heaped  in  his  lifetime  upon  my  poor 
pastoral  progenitor. 

If  it  were  presumption  so  to  speculate,  the  present 
owners  of  the  mansion  had  least  reason  to  complain. 
They  had  long  forsaken  the  old  house  of  their  fathers 
for  a  newer  trifle  ;  and  I  was  left  to  appropriate  to 
myself  what  images  I  could  pick  up,  to  raise  my  fancy, 
or  to  soothe  my  vanity. 

I  was  the  true  descendant  of  those  old  W s  ; 

and  not  the  present  family  of  that  name,  who  had  fled 
the  old  waste  places. 

Mine  was  that  gallery  of  good  old  family  portraits, 
which  as  I  have  gone  over,  giving  them  in  fancy  my 
own  family  name,  one  —  and  then  another  —  would 
seem  to  smile,  reaching  forward  fi'om  the  canvas,  to 
recognize  the  new  relationship ;  while  the  rest  looked 
grave,  as  it  seemed,  at  the  vacancy  in  their  dwelling, 
and  thoughts  of  fled  posterity. 

That  Beauty  with  the  cool  blue  pastoral  drapery, 
and  a  lamb  —  that  hung  next  the  great  bay  window  — 

with  the  bright  yellow  H shire  hair,  and  eye  of 

watchet  hue  —  so  like  my  Alice  !  —  I  am  persuaded 
she  was  a  true  Elia,  —  Mildred  Elia,  I  take  it. 

Mine  too,  Blakesmoor,  was  thy  noble  Marble  Hall 
with  its  mosaic  pavements,  and  its  Twelve  Caesars,  — 
stately  busts  in  marble,  —  ranged  round ;  of  whose 
countenances,  young  reader  of  faces  as  I  was,  the 
frowning  beauty  of  Nero,  I  remember,  had  most  of  my 
wonder;   but  the  mild  Galba  had  my  love.      There 


BLAKESMOOR  IN   H SHIRE.  263 

they  stood  in  the  coldness  of  death,  yet  freshness  of  im- 
mortahty. 

Mine  too  thy  lofty  Justice  Hall,  "with  its  one  chair 
of  authority,  high-backed  and  wickered,  once  the  terror 
of  luckless  poacher,  or  self-forgetful  maiden  —  so  com- 
mon since,  that  bats  have  roosted  in  it. 

Mine  too,  —  whose  else  ?  —  thy  costly  fruit-garden, 
with  its  sun-baked  southern  wall ;  the  ampler  pleasure- 
garden,  rising  backwards  from  the  house  in  triple  ter- 
races, with  flower-pots  now  of  palest  lead,  save  that 
a  speck  here  and  there,  saved  from  the  elements, 
bespake  then*  pristine  state  to  have  been  gilt  and 
glittering ;  the  verdant  quarters  backwarder  still ;  and, 
stretching  still  beyond,  in  old  formality,  thy  firry 
wilderness,  the  haunt  of  the  squirrel,  and  the  day-long 
murmuring  wood-pigeon,  with  that  antique  image  in 
the  centre,  God  or  Goddess  I  wist  not ;  but  child  of 
Athens  or  old  Rome  paid  never  a  sincerer  worship  to 
Pan  or  to  Sylvanus  in  their  native  groves,  than  I  to 
that  fragmental  mystery. 

Was  it  for  this,  that  I  kissed  my  childish  hands  too 
fervently  in  your  idol-worship,  walks  and  windings  of 
Blakesmoor  !  for  this,  or  what  sin  of  mine,  has  the 
plough  passed  over  your  pleasant  places  ?  I  sometimes 
think  that  as  men,  when  they  die,  do  not  die  all,  so  of 
theh  extinguished  habitations  there  may  be  a  hope  — 
a  germ  to  be  revivified. 


264  POOR  RELATIONS. 


POOR  RELATIONS. 

A  Poor  Relation  —  is  the  most  irrelevant  thing  in 
nature,  —  a  piece  of  impertinent  correspondency,  —  an 
odicus  approximation,  —  a  haunting  conscience,  —  a 
preposterous  shadow,  lengthening  in  the  noontide  of 
our  prosperity,  —  an  unwelcome  remembrancer,  —  a 
perpetually  recurring  mortification,  —  a  drain  on  your 
purse,  a  more  intolerable  dun  upon  your  pride,  —  a 
drawback  upon  success,  —  a  rebuke  to  your  rising, — 
a  stain  in  your  blood,  —  a  blot  on  your  'scutcheon, — 
a  rent  in  your  garment,  —  a  death's  head  at  your  ban- 
quet, —  Agathocles's  pot,  —  a  Mordecai  in  your  gate,  a 
Lazarus  at  your  door,  —  a  lion  in  your  path,  —  a  frog 
in  your  chamber,  —  a  fly  in  your  ointment,  —  a  mote  in 
your  eye,  —  a  triumph  to  your  enemy,  an  apology  to 
your  friends,  —  the  one  thing  not  needful,  —  the  hail  in 
harvest,  —  the  ounce  of  sour  in  a  pound  of  sweet. 

He  is  known  by  his  knock.     Your  heart  telleth  you 

*'  That  is  Mr. ."     A  rap,  between  famiharity  and 

respect ;  that  demands,  and  at  the  same  time  seems  to 
despair  of,  entertainment.  He  entereth  smiling  and  — 
embarrassed.  He  holdeth  out  his  hand  to  you  to  shake, 
and  —  draweth  it  back  again.  He  casually  looketh  in 
about  dinner-time  —  when  the  table  is  fiill.  He  of- 
fereth  to  go  away,  seeing  you  have  company,  —  but  is 
induced  to  stay.  He  filleth  a  chair,  and  your  visitor's 
two  children  are  accommodated  at  a  side  table.  He 
never  cometh  upon  open  days,   when    your  wife   says 

with  some  complacency,  "  My  dear,  perhaps  Mr. 

will  drop  in  to-day."     He  remembereth  birthdays, — 


POOR   RELATIONS.  265 

and  professeth  he  is  fortunate  to  have  stumbled  upon 
one.  He  declareth  against  fish,  the  turbot  being  small 
—  yet  suffereth  himself  to  be  importuned  into  a  slice, 
against  his  first  resolution.  He  sticketh  by  the  port,  — 
yet  will  be  prevailed  upon  to  empty  the  remainder  glass 
of  claret,  if  a  stranger  press  it  upon  him.  He  is  a 
puzzle  to  the  servants,  who  are  fearful  of  being  too 
obsequious,  or  not  civil  enough,  to  him.  The  guests 
think  "  they  have  seen  him  before."  Every  one 
speculateth  upon  his  condition ;  and  the  most  part 
take  him  to  be  —  a  tidewaiter.  He  calleth  you  by 
your  Christian  name,  to  imply  that  his  other  is  the 
same  with  your  own.  He  is  too  familiar  by  half,  yet 
you  wish  he  had  less  diffidence.  With  half  the  famili- 
arity, he  might  pass  for  a  casual  dependant ;  with  more 
boldnjess,  he  would  be  in  no  danger  of  being  taken  for 
what  he  is.  He  is  too  humble  for  a  friend  ;  yet  taketh 
on  him  more  state  than  befits  a  client.  He  is  a  worse 
guest  than  a  country  tenant,  inasmuch  as  he  bringeth 
up  no  rent  —  yet  'tis  odds,  from  his  garb  and  demeanor, 
that  your  guests  take  him  for  one.  He  is  asked  to 
make  one  at  the  whist-table ;  refuseth  on  the  score  of 
poverty,  and  —  resents  being  left  out.  When  the  com- 
pany break  up,  he  proffereth  to  go  for  a  coach  —  and 
lets  the  servant  go.  He  recollects  your  grandfather ; 
and  will  thrust  in  some  mean  and  quite  unimportant 
anecdote  —  of  the  family.  He  knew  it  when  it  was 
not  quite  so  flourishing  as  "  he  is  blest  in  seeing  it 
now."  He  reviveth  past  situations,  to  institute  what 
he  calleth  —  favorable  comparisons.  With  a  reflecting 
sort  of  congratulation,  he  will  inquire  the  price  of  your 
furniture ;  and  insults  you  with  a  special  commenda- 
tion of  your  wmdow-curtains.     He  is  of  opinion  that 


266  POOR   RELATIONS. 

the  urn  is  the  more  elegant  shape,  but,  after  all,  thero 
was  something  more  comfortable  about  the  old  tea- 
kettle, —  which  you  must  remember.  He  dare  say 
you  must  find  a  great  convenience  in  having  a  carriage 
of  your  own,  and  appealeth  to  your  lady  if  it  is  not  so. 
Inquireth  if  you  have  had  your  arms  done  on  vellum 
yet ;  and  did  not  knoAv,  till  lately,  that  such-and-such 
had  been  the  crest  of  the  family.  His  memory  is 
unseasonable ;  his  compliments  perverse ;  his  talk  a 
trouble ;  his  stay  pertinacious ;  and  when  he  goeth 
away,  you  dismiss  his  chair  into  a  corner,  as  precipi- 
tately as  possible,  and  feel  fairly  rid  of  two  nuis- 
ances. 

There  is  a  worse  evil  under  the  sun,  and  that  is  —  a 
female  Poor  Relation.  You  may  do  something  with 
the  other ;  you  may  pass  him  off  tolerably  well ;  but 
your  indigent  she-relative  is  hopeless.  "  He  is  an  old 
humorist,"  you  may  say,  "  and  affects  to  go  threadbare. 
His  circumstances  are  better  than  folks  would  take 
them  to  be.  You  are  fond  of  having  a  Character  at 
your  table,  and  tnily  he  is  one."  But  in  the  indica- 
tions of  female  poverty  there  can  be  no  disguise.  No 
woman  dresses  below  herself  from  caprice.  The  truth 
must  out  without  shuffling.      "  She  is  plainly  related  to 

the  L s  ;   or  what  does  she  at  their  house  ?  "     She 

is,  in  all  probability,  your  wife's  cousin.  Nine  times  out 
of  ten,  at  least,  this  is  the  case.  Her  garb  is  something 
between  a  gentlewoman  and  a  beggar,  yet  the  former 
evidently  predominates.  She  is  most  provokingly  hum- 
ble, and  ostentatiously  sensible  to  her  inferiority.  He 
may  require  to  be  repressed  sometimes  —  aliquando  suf- 
jiami.nandus  erat  —  but  there  is  no  raising  her.  You 
send  her  soup  at  dinner,  and  she  begs  to  be  helped  — 


POOR  RELATIONS.  267 

after  the  gentlemen.     Mr. requests  the  honor  of 

taking  wine  witli  her ;  she  hesitates  between  Port  and 
Madeira,  and  chooses  the  former  —  because  lie  does. 
She  calls  the  servant  Sir ;  and  insists  on  not  troubling 
him  to  hold  her  plate.  The  housekeeper  patronizes  her. 
The  children's  governess  takes  upon  her  to  correct  her, 
when  she  has  mistaken  the  piano  for  the  harpsichord. 

Richard  Amlet,  Esq.,  in  the  play,  is  a  notable  in- 
stance of  the  disadvantages,  to  which  this  chimerical 
notion  of  affinity  constituting  a  claim  to  acquaintance^ 
may  subject  the  spirit  of  a  gentleman.  A  little  foolish 
blood  is  all  that  is  betwixt  him  and  a  lady  with  a  great 
estate.  His  stars  are  perpetually  crossed  by  the  malig- 
nant maternity  of  an  old  woman,  who  persists  in  call- 
ing him  "  her  son  Dick."  But  she  has  wherewithal  in 
the  end  to  recompense  his  indignities,  and  float  him 
again  upon  the  brilliant  surface,  under  which  it  had 
been  her  seeming  business  and  pleasure  all  along  to 
sink  him.  All  men,  besides,  are  not  of  Dick's  temper- 
ament.    I  knew  an  Amlet  in  real  life,  who,  wanting 

Dick's  buoyancy,  sank  indeed.     Poor  W was  of 

my  own  standing  at  Christ's,  a  fine  classic,  and  a  youth 
of  promise.  If  he  had  a  blemish,  it  was  too  much 
pride ;  but  its  quality  was  inoffensive ;  it  was  not  of 
that  sort  which  hardens  the  heart,  and  serves  to  keep 
inferiors  at  a  distance ;  it  only  sought  to  ward  off  dero- 
gation from  itself.  It  was  the  principle  of  self-respect 
carried  as  far  as  it  could  go,  without  infringing  upon 
that  respect,  which  he  would  have  every  one  else 
equally  maintain  for  himself.  He  would  have  you  to 
think  alike  with  him  on  this  topic.  Many  a  quarrel 
have  I  had  with  him,  when  we  were  rather  older  boys, 
and  our  tallness  made  us  more  obnoxious  to  observation 


268  POOR   RELATIONS. 

in  the  blue  clothes,  because  I  would  not  thread  the 
alleys  and  blind  ways  of  the  town  with  him  to  elude 
notice,  when  we  have  been  out  together  on  a  holiday 
in  the  streets  of  this  sneering  and  prying  metropolis. 

"VV went,  sore  with  these  notions,  to  Oxford,  where 

the  dignity  and  sweetness  of  a  scholar's  life,  meeting 
with  the  alloy  of  a  humble  introduction,  wrought  in 
him  a  passionate  devotion  to  the  place,  with  a  profound 
aversion  fi'om  the  society.  The  servitor's  gown  (worse 
than  his  school  array)  clung  to  him  with  Nessian 
venom.  He  thought  himself  ridiculous  in  a  garb, 
under  which  Latimer  must  have  walked  erect,  and  in 
which  Hooker,  in  his  young  days,  possibly  flaunted  in 
a  vein  of  no  discommendable  vanity.  In  the  depth  of 
college  shades,  or  in  his  lonely  chamber,  the  poor  stu- 
dent shrunk  fi'om  observation.  He  found  shelter  among 
books,  wliich  insult  not ;  and  studies,  that  ask  no  ques- 
tions of  a  youth's  finances.  He  was  lord  of  his  library, 
and  seldom  cared  for  looking  out  beyond  his  domains. 
The  healing  influence  of  studious  pursuits  was  upon 
him,  to  soothe  and  to  abstract.  He  was  almost  a 
Ileal  thy  man ;  when  the  waywardness  of  his  fate  broke 
out  against  him  with  a  second  and  worse  malignity. 
The  father  of  W had  hitherto  exercised  the  hum- 
ble profession  of  house-painter  at  N ,  near  Oxford. 

A  supposed  interest  with  some  of  the  heads  of  colleges 
had  now  induced  him  to  take  up  his  abode  in  that  city, 
with  the  hope  of  being  employed  upon  some  public 
works  which  were  talked  of.  From  that  moment  I 
read  in  the  countenance  of  the  young  man  the  determi- 
nation which  at  length  tore  him  from  academical  pur- 
suits forever.  To  a  person  unacquainted  with  our 
universities,  the  distance  betwefsn  the  gownsmen  and 


POOR  RELATIONS,  269 

the  townsmen,  as  they  are  called  —  the  trading  part 
of  the  latter  especially  —  is  carried  to  an  excess  that 
would  appear  harsh  and  incredible.     The  temperament 

of  W 's  father  was  diametrically  the  reverse  of  his 

own.  Old  W was  a  little,  busy,  cringing  trades- 
man, who,  with  his  son  upon  his  arm,  would  stand 
bowing  and  scraping,  cap  in  hand,  to  anything  that 
wore  the  semblance  of  a  gown,  —  insensible  to  the 
winks  and  opener  remonstrances  of  the  young  man,  to 
whose  chamber-fellow,  or  equal  in  standing,  perhaps, 
he  was  thus   obsequiously  and   gratuitously   ducking. 

Such  a  state  of  things  could  not  last.      W must 

change  the  air  of  Oxford,  or  be  suffocated.  He  chose 
the  former ;  and  let  the  sturdy  moralist,  who  strains 
the  point  of  the  filial  duties  as  high  as  they  can  bear, 
censure  the  dereliction ;    he  cannot  estimate  the  strug- 

gle.     I  stood  with  W ,  the  last  afternoon  I  ever 

saw  him,  under  the  eaves  of  his  paternal  dwelling.  It 
was  in  the  fine  lane  leadino;  from  the  Hioh-street  to  the 

back  of  *  *  *  college,  where  W kept  his  rooms. 

He  seemed  thoughtful  and  more  reconciled.  I  ven- 
tm-ed  to  rally  him  —  finding  him  in  a  better  mood  — 
upon  a  representation  of  the  Artist  Evangelist,  which 
the  old  man,  whose  affairs  were  beginning  to  flourish, 
had  caused  to  be  set  up  in  a  splendid  sort  of  frame  over 
his  really  handsome  shop,  either  as  a  token  of  pros- 
perity or   badge    of  gratitude   to    his    saint.      W 

looked  up  at  the  Luke,  and,  like  Satan,  "  knew  his 
mounted  sign  —  and  fled."  A  letter  on  his  father's 
table  the  next  morning  announced  that  he  had  accepted 
a  commission  in  a  regiment  about  to  embark  for  Portu- 
gal. He  was  among  the  first  who  perished  before  the 
walls  of  St.  Sebastian. 


270  POOR   RELATIONS. 

I  do  not  know  how,  upon  a  subject  which  I  began 
with  treating  half  seriously,  I  should  have  fallen  upon 
a  recital  so  eminently  painful ;  but  this  theme  of  poor 
relationship  is  replete  with  so  much  matter  for  tragic 
as  well  as  comic  associations,  that  it  is  difficult  to  keep 
the  account  distinct  without  blending.  The  earliest 
impressions  which  I  received  on  this  matter,  are  cer- 
tainly not  attended  with  anything  painful,  or  very 
humiliating,  in  the  recalling.  At  my  father's  table  (no 
very  splendid  one)  was  to  be  found,  every  Saturday, 
the  mysterious  figure  of  an  aged  gentleman,  clothed  in 
neat  black,  of  a  sad  yet  comely  appearance.  His  de- 
portment was  of  the  essence  of  gravity  ;  his  words 
few  or  none  ;  and  I  was  not  to  make  a  noise  in  his 
presence.  I  had  little  inclination  to  have  done  so  — 
for  my  cue  was  to  admire  in  silence.  A  particular 
elbow-chair  was  appropriated  to  him,  which  was  in  no 
case  to  be  violated.  A  peculiar  sort  of  sweet  pudding, 
which  appeared  on  no  other  occasion,  distinguished  the 
days  of  his  coming.  I  used  to  think  him  a  prodigiously 
rich  man.  All  I  could  make  out  of  him  was,  that  he 
and  my  father  had  been  schoolfellows,  a  world  ago,  at 
Lincoln,  and  that  he  came  from  the  Mint.  The  Mint 
I  knev/  to  be  a  place  where  all  the  money  was  coined 
—  and  I  thought  he  was  the  owner  of  all  that  money. 
Awful  ideas  of  the  Tower  twined  themselves  about  his 
presence.  He  seemed  above  human  infirmities  and 
passions.  A  sort  of  melancholy  grandeur  invested  him. 
From  some  inexplicable  doom  I  fancied  him  obliged  to 
go  about  in  an  eternal  suit  of  mourning  ;  a  captive  — 
a  stately  being,  let  out  of  the  Tower  on  Saturdays. 
Often  have  I  wondered  at  the  temerity  of  my  father, 
who,  in  spite  of  an  habitual  general  respect  which  we 


POOR   RELATIONS.  271 

all  in  common  manifested  towards  him,  would  venture 
now  and  tlien  to  stand  up  against  liim  in  some  argu- 
ment, touching  their  youthful  days.  The  houses  of  the 
ancient  city  of  Lincoln  are  divided  (as  most  of  my 
readers  know)  between  the  dwellers  on  the  hill,  and  in 
the  valley.  This  marked  distinction  formed  an  obvious 
division  between  the  boys  who  lived  above  (however 
brought  together  in  a  common  school)  and  the  boys 
whose  paternal  residence  was  on  the  plain  ;  a  sufficient 
cause  of  hostility  in  the  code  of  these  young  Grotiuses. 
My  father  had  been  a  leading  Mountaineer ;  and  would 
still  maintain  the  general  su])eriority,  in  skill  and  hardi- 
hood, of  the  Above  Boys  (his  own  faction)  over  the 
Below  Boys  (so  were  they  called),  of  which  party  his 
contemporaiy  had  been  a  chieftain.  Many  and  hot 
were  the  sku'mishes  on  this  topic,  —  the  only  one  upon 
which  the  old  gentleman  was  ever  brought  out  —  and 
bad  blood  bred ;  even  sometimes  almost  to  the  recom- 
mencement (so  I  expected)  of  actual  hostilities.  But 
my  father,  who  scorned  to  insist  upon  advantages, 
generally  contrived  to  turn  the  conversation  upon  some 
adroit  by-commendation  of  the  old  Minster ;  in  the 
general  preference  of  which,  before  all  other  cathedrals 
in  the  island,  the  dweller  on  the  hill,  and  the  plain- 
born,  could  meet  on  a  conciliating  level,  and  lay  down 
their  less  important  differences.  Once  only  I  saw  the 
old  gentleman  really  ruffled,  and  I  remembered  with 
anguish  the  thought  that  came  over  me  :  "  Perhaps  he 
will  never  come  here  again."  He  had  been  pressed  to 
take  another  plate  of  the  viand,  which  I  have  already 
mentioned  as  the  indispensable  concomitant  of  his  visits. 
He  had  refused  with  a  resistance  amountino;  to  rioor  — 
when  my  aunt,  an  old  Lincolnian,  but  who  had  some- 


272  POOR   RELATIONS. 

tiling  of  this,  in  common  with  my  cousin  Bridget,  that 
she  would  sometimes  press  civility  out  of  season,  — 
uttered  the  following  memorable  application,  —  "  Do 
take  another  slice,  Mr.  Billet,  for  you  do  not  get  pud- 
ding every  day."  The  old  gentleman  said  nothing  at 
the  time,  — but  he  took  occasion  in  the  course  of  the 
evening,  when  some  argument  had  intervened  between 
them,  to  utter  with  an  emphasis  which  chilled  the  com- 
pany, and  which  chills  me  now  as  I  write  it  — "  Wom- 
an, you  are  superannuated  !  "  John  Billet  did  not 
survive  long,  after  the  digesting  of  this  affi'ont ;  but  he 
siu'vived  long  enough  to  assure  me  that  peace  was 
actually  restored  !  and,  if  I  remember  aright,  another 
pudding  was  discreetly  substituted  in  the  place  of  that 
which  had  occasioned  the  offence.  He  died  at  the 
Mint  (anno  1781),  where  he  had  long  held,  what  he 
accounted,  a  comfortable  independence  ;  and  with  five 
pounds,  fourteen  shillings,  and  a  penny,  which  were 
found  in  his  escrutoire  after  his  decease,  left  the  world, 
blessing  God  that  he  had  enough  to  bury  liim,  and  that 
he  had  never  been  obliged  to  any  man  for  a  sixpence. 
This  was  —  a  Poor  Relation. 


DETA3HED  THOUGHTS   ON   BOOKS  AND   READING    27^ 


DETACHED  THOUGHTS  ON  BOOKS  AND  READING. 


To  mind  the  inside  of  a  book  is  to  entertain  one's  self  with  the  forced 
product  of  another  man's  brain.  Now  I  thinlc  a  man  of  qualitj-  and  breed- 
ing maybe  much  amused  with  tlie  natural  sprouts  of  his  own.  —  Lord 
Foppinyian  in  the  Relapse. 


An  ingenious  acquaintance  of  mj  own  was  so  much 
struck  with  this  bright  sally  of  his  Lordship,  that  he 
has  left  off  reading  altogether,  to  the  great  improve- 
ment of  his  originality.  At  the  hazard  of  losing  some 
credit  on  this  head,  I  must  confess  that  I  dedicate  no 
mconsiderable  portion  of  my  time  to  other  people's 
thoughts.  I  dream  away  my  life  in  others'  specu- 
lations. I  love  to  lose  myself  in  other  men's  minds. 
When  I  am  not  walking,  I  am  reading ;  I  cannot  sit 
and  think.     Books  think  for  me. 

I  have  no  repugnances.  Shaftesbury'  is  not  too 
genteel  for  me,  nor  Jonathan  Wild  too  low.  I  can 
read  anything  which  I  call  a  book.  There  are  things 
in  that  shape  which  I  cannot  allow  for  such. 

In  this  catalogue  of  hooks  which  are  no  books  — 
biblia  a-biblia  —  I  reckon  Court  Calendars,  Directories, 
Pocket-Books,  Draught  Boards,  bound  and  lettered  on 
the  back,  Scientific  Treatises,  Almanacs,  Statutes  at 
Large  ;  the  works  of  Hume,  Gibbon,  Robertson,  Beat- 
tie,  Soame  Jenyns,  and  generally,  all  those  vohunes 
which  "  no  gentleman's  library  should  be  without ;  " 
the  Histories  of  Flavins  Josephus  (that  learned  Jew), 
and  Paley's  Moral  Philosophy.  With  these  exceptions, 
I  can  read  almost  anything.  I  bless  my  stars  for  a 
taste  so  catholic,  so  unexcluding. 

VOL.   Ill  18 


274  DETACHED   THOUGHTS   ON   BOOKS   AND   READING. 

I  confess  that  it  moves  my  spleen  to  see  these 
tilings  in  hooks'  clothing  perched  upon  slielves,  like 
false  saints,  usurpers  of  true  shrines,  intruders  into  the 
sanctuary,  thrusting  out  tlie  legitimate  occupants.  To 
reach  down  a  well-bound  semblance  of  a  volume,  and 
hope  it  some  kind-hearted  playbook,  then,  opening 
what  "  seem  its  leaves,"  to  come  bolt  upon  a  withering 
Population  Essay.  To  expect  a  Steele,  or  a  Farquhar, 
and  find  —  Adam  Smith.  To  view  a  well-arranged 
assortment  of  blockheaded  Encyclopaedias  (Anglicanaa 
-or  Metropolitanas)  set  out  in  an  array  of  russia,  or 
morocco,  when  a  tithe  of  that  good  leather  would  com- 
fortably reclothe  my  shivering  folios ;  would  renovate 
Paracelsus  himself,  and  enable  old  Raymund  Lully  to 
look  like  himself  again  in  the  world.  I  never  see  these 
impostors,  but  I  long  to  strip  them,  to  warm  my  ragged 
veterans  in  their  spoils. 

To  be  strong-backed  and  neat-bound  is  the  desidera- 
tum of  a  volume.  Magnificence  comes  after.  This, 
when  it  can  be  afforded,  is  not  to  be  lavished  upon 
all  kinds  of  books  indiscriminately.  I  would  not  dress 
a  set  of  Magazines,  for  instance,  in  full  suit.  The 
dishabille,  or  half-binding  (with  russia  backs  ever) 
is  our  costume.  A  Shakspeare,  or  a  jNIilton  (unless 
the  first  editions),  it  were  mere  foppery  to  trick  out  in 
gay  apparel.  The  possession  of  them  confers  no  dis- 
tinction. The  exterior  of  them  (the  things  themselves 
being  so  common),  strange  to  say,  raises  no  sweet  emo- 
tions, no  tickling  sense  of  property  m  the  owner. 
Thomson's  Seasons,  again,  looks  best  (I  maintain  it) 
a  little  torn,  and  dog's-eared.  How  beautiful  to  a 
genuine  lover  of  reading  are  the  sullied  leaves,  and 
worn-out  appearance,  nay  the  very  odor  (beyond  rus- 


L>ETACHED   THOUGHTS    ON   BOOKS    \ND   READING.  275 

aia),  if  we  would  not  forget  kind  fet  lings  in  fastidious- 
ness, of  an  old  "  Circulating  Library  "  Tom  Jones,  or 
Vicar  of  Wakefield  !  How  they  speak  of  the  thousand 
thumbs  that  have  turned  over  their  pages  with  delight ! 
—  of  the  lone  sempstress,  whom  they  may  have  cheered 
(milliner,  or  harder-working  mantua-maker)  after  her 
long  day's  needle-toil,  running  far  into  midnight,  when 
she  has  snatched  an  hour,  ill  spared  from  sleep  to  steep 
her  cares,  as  in  some  Lethean  cup,  in  spelling  out  their 
enchanting  contents !  Who  would  have  them  a  whit 
less  soiled  ?  What  better  condition  could  we  desire  to 
see  them  in  ? 

In  some  respects  the  better  a  book  is,  the  less  it  de- 
mands from  binding.  Fielding,  Smollett,  Sterne,  and 
all  that  class  of  pei'petually  self-reproductive  volumes  — 
Great  Nature's  Stereotypes  —  we  see  them  individually 
perish  with  less  regret,  because  we  know  the  copies  of 
them  to  be  "  etenie."  But  where  a  book  is  at  once 
both  good  and  rare  —  where  the  individual  is  almost 
the  species,  and  when  that  perishes, 

We  know  not  where  is  that  Promethean  torch 
That  can  its  light  relumine  — 

such  a  book,  for  instance,  as  the  Life  of  the  Duke  of 
Newcastle,  by  his  Duchess  —  no  casket  is  rich  enough, 
no  casmg  sufficiently  durable,  to  honor  and  keep  safe 
such  a  jewel. 

Not  only  rare  volumes  of  this  description,  which 
seem  hopeless  ever  to  be  reprinted  ;  but  old  editions 
of  writers,  such  as  Sir  Philip  Sydney,  Bishop  Taylor, 
Milton  -in  his  prose  works.  Fuller  —  of  whom  we  have 
reprints,  yet  the  books  themselves,  though  they  go 
about,  and  are  talked  of  here  and  there,  we  know, 
have  not  endenizened   themselves  (nor  possibly  ever 


276  DETACHED  THOUGHTS  ON  BOOKS  AND  READING. 

will)  in  the  national  heart,  so  as  to  become  stock  books 
—  it  is  good  to  possess  these  in  durable  and  costly 
covers.  I  do  not  care  for  a  First  Folio  of  Shakspeare. 
I  rather  prefer  the  common  editions  of  Rowe  and  Ton- 
son,  without  notes,  and  with  plates^  which,  being  so 
execrably  bad,  serve  as  maps,  or  modest  remembran- 
cers, to  the  text ;  and  without  pretending  to  any  sup- 
posable  emulation  with  it,  are  so  much  better  than  the 
Shakspeare  gallery  engravings^  which  did.  I  have  a 
community  of  feeling  with  my  countiymen  about  his 
Plays,  and  I  like  those  editions  of  him  best,  which  have 
been  oftenest  tumbled  about  and  handled.  On  the 
contrary,  I  cannot  read  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  but  in 
Folio.  The  Octavo  editions  are  painful  to  look  at.  I 
have  no  sympathy  with  them.  If  they  were  as  much 
read  as  the  current  etlitions  of  the  other  poet,  I  should 
prefer  them  in  that  shape  to  the  older  one.  I  do  not 
know  a  more  heartless  sight  than  the  reprint  of  the 
Anatomy  of  Melancholy.  What  need  was  there  of 
unearthing  the  bones  of  that  fantastic  old  great  man,  to 
expose  them  in  a  windingsheet  of  the  newest  fashion 
to  modern  censure  ?  what  hapless  stationer  could  dream 
of  Burton  ever  becoming  popular  ?  —  The  wretched 
Malone  could  not  do  worse,  when  he  bribed  the  sexton 
of  Stratford  church  to  let  him  whitewash  the  painted 
effigy  of  old  Shakspeare,  which  stood  there,  in  rude  but 
lively  fashion  depicted,  to  the  very  color  of  the  cheek, 
the  eye,  the  eyebrow,  hair,  the  very  dress  he  used  to 
wear  —  the  only  authentic  testimony  we  had,  however 
imperfect,  of  these  curious  parts  and  pai'cels.  ©f  him. 
They  covered  him  over  with  a  coat  of  white  paint. 
By ,  if  I  had  been  a  justice  of  peace  for  Warwick- 
shire, I  would  have  clapt  both  commentator  and  sexton 


DETACHED   THOUGHTS   ON  BOOKS  AND    READING.  277 

fast  in  the  stocks,  for  a  pair  of  meddling  sacrilegious 
varlets. 

I  think  I  see  them  at  their  work  —  these  sapient 
trouble- tombs. 

Shall  I  be  thought  fantastical,  if  I  confess,  that  the 
names  of  some  of  our  poets  sound  sweeter,  and  have  a 
finer  relish  to  the  ear  —  to  mine,  at  least  —  than  that 
of  Milton  or  of  Shakspeare  ?  It  may  be,  that  the  latter 
are  more  staled  and  rung  upon  in  common  cHscourse. 
The  sweetest  names,  and  which  carry  a  perfume  in  the 
mention,  are,  Kit  Marlowe,  Drayton,  Drummond  of 
Hawthornden,  and  Cowley. 

Much  depends  upon  when  and  where  you  read  a  book. 
In  the  five  or  six  impatient  minutes,  before  the  dinner 
is  quite  ready,  who  would  think  of  taking  up  the  Fairy 
Queen  for  a  stopgap,  or  a  volume  of  Bishop  Andrewes'a 
sermons  ? 

Milton  almost  requires  a  solemn  service  of  music  to 
be  played  before  you  enter  upon  him.  But  he  brings 
his  music,  to  which,  who  listens,  had  need  bring  docile 
thoughts,  and  purged  ears. 

Winter  evenings  —  the  world  shut  out  —  with  less 
of  ceremony  the  gentle  Shakspeare  enters.  At  such  a 
season,  the  Tempest,  or  his  own  Winter's  Tale  — 

These  two  poets  you  cannot  avoid  reading  aloud  — 
to  yourself,  or  (as  it  chances)  to  some  single  person 
hstening.  More  than  one  —  and  it  degenerates  into  an 
audience. 

Books  of  quick  interest,  that  hurry  on  for  incidents, 
are  for  tJie  eye  to  glide  over  only.  It  will  not  do 
to  read  them  out.  I  could  never  listen  to  even  the 
better  kind  of  modem  novels  without  extreme  irk- 
someness 


278  DETACHED   THOUGHTS   ON   BOOKS   AND   READING. 

A  newspaper,  read  out,  is  intolerable.  In  some  of 
the  bank  offices  it  is  the  custom  (to  save  so  much  indi- 
vidual time)  for  one  of  the  clerks  —  who  is  the  best 
scholar  —  to  commence  upon  the  Times,  or  the  Chron- 
icle, and  recite  its  entire  contents  aloud,  pro  b&no  pub- 
lico. With  every  advantage  of  lungs  and  elocution, 
the  effect  is  singularly  vapid.  In  barbers'  shops  and 
public-houses  a  fellow  will  get  up  and  spell  out  a  par- 
agraph, which  he  communicates  as  some  discovery. 
Another  follows  with  his  selection.  So  the  entire  jour- 
nal transpires  at  length  by  piecemeal.  Seldom-readers 
are  slow  readers,  and,  without  this  expedient,  no  one  in 
the  company  would  probably  ever  travel  through  the 
contents  of  a  whole  paper. 

Newspapers  always  excite  curiosity.  No  one  ever 
lays  one  down  without  a  feeling  of  disappointment. 

What  an  eternal  time  that  gentleman  in  black,  at 
Nando's,  keeps  the  paper !  I  am  sick  of  hearing  the 
waiter  bawlmg  out  incessantly,  "  The  Chronicle  is  in 
hand.  Sir." 

Coming  into  an  inn  at  night  —  having  ordered  your 
supper  —  what  can  be  more  delightful  than  to  find 
lying  in  the  window-seat,  left  there  time  out  of  mind  by 
the  cai'elessness  of  some  former  guest,  —  two  or  three 
numbers  of  the  old  Town  and  Country  Magazine,  with 
its  amusing  tete^d-tete  pictures  — "  The  Royal  Lover 

and  Lady  G ;  "    "  The  Melting  Platonic  and  the 

old  Beau,"  —  and  such-like  antiquated  scandal?  Would 
you  exchange  it  —  at  that  time,  and  in  that  place  —  for 
a  better  book  ? 

Poor  Tobin,  who  latterly  fell  blind,  did  not  regret  it 
Bo  much  for  the  Aveightier  kinds  of  reading  —  the  Para- 
dise Lost,  or  Comus,  he  could  have  read  to  him  —  but 


DETACHED   THOUGHTS   ON   BOOKS   AND   READING.       279 

he  missed  the  pleasure  of  skimming  over  with  his  own 
eye  a  magazine,  or  a  hght  pamphlet. 

I  should  not  care  to  be  caught  in  the  serious  avenues 
of  some  cathedral  alone,  and  reading  Candide. 

I  do  not  remember  a  more  whimsical  sur]Dnse  than 
having  been  once  detected  —  by  a  familiar  damsel  — 
reclined  at  my  ease  upon  the  grass,  on  Primrose  Hill 
(her  Cythera),  reading  Pamela.  There  was  nothing 
in  the  book  to  make  a  man  seriously  ashamed  at  the 
exposure  ;  but  as  she  seated  herself  down  by  me,  and 
seemed  determined  to  read  in  company,  I  could  have 
wished  it  had  been  —  any  other  book.  We  read  on 
very  sociably  for  a  few  pages  ;  and,  not  finding  the  au- 
thor much  to  her  taste,  she  got  up,  and  —  went  away. 
Gentle  casuist,  I  leave  it  to  thee  to  conjecture,  whether 
the  blush  (for  there  was  one  between  us)  was  the 
property  of  the  nymph  or  the  swain  in  this  dilemma. 
From  me  you  shall  never  get  the  secret. 

I  am  not  nmch  a  friend  to  out-of-doors  reading.  I 
cannot  settle  my  spirits  to  it.  I  knew  a  Unitarian 
minister,  who  was  generally  to  be  seen  upon  Snow  Hill 
(as  yet  Skinner's  Street  was  not),  between  the  hours 
of  ten  and  eleven  in  the  morning,  studying  a  volume 
of  Lardner.  I  own  this  to  have  been  a  strain  of  ab- 
straction beyond  my  reach.  I  used  to  admire  how  he 
sidled  along,  keeping  clear  of  secular  contacts.  An 
illiterate  encounter  with  a  porter's  knot,  or  a  bread- 
basket, would  have  quickly  put  to  flight  all  the  the-l( 
ology  I  am  master  of,  and  have  left  me  worse  than 
mdifferent  to  the  five  points. 

There  is  a  class  of  street-readers,  whom  I  can  never 
contemplate  without  affection  —  the  poor  gentry,  who, 
not  having  wherewithal  to  buy  or  hire  a  book,  filch  a 


280  DETACHED  THOUGHTS  ON  BOOKS  AND  READ..<G 

little  learning  at  the  open  stalls  —  the  owner,  with  hia 
hard  eye,  casting  envious  looks  at  them  all  the  while, 
and  thinking  when  they  will  have  done.  Venturing 
tenderly,  page  after  page,  expecting  every  moment 
when  he  shall  intei'pose  his  interdict,  and  yet  unable 
to  deny  themselves  the  gratification,  they  "  snatch  a 

fearful  joy."      Martin  B ,  in  this  way,  by  daily 

fragments,  got  through  two  volumes  of  Clarissa,  when 
the  stall-keeper  damped  his  laudable  ambition,  by  ask- 
ing him  (it  was  in  his  younger  days)  whether  he  meant 
to  piu'chase  the  work.  M.  declares,  that  under  no 
cu'cumstance  in  his  life  did  he  ever  peruse  a  book  with 
half  the  satisfaction  which  he  took  in  those  uneasy 
snatches.  A  quaint  poetess  of  our  day  has  moralized 
upon  this  subject  in  two  very  touching  but  homc^ly 
stanzas. 


I  saw  a  boy  vrith  eager  eye 

Open  a  book  upon  a  stall, 

And  read,  as  he'd  devour  it  all; 

Which  when  the  stall-man  did  espy, 

Soon  to  the  boy  I  heard  him  call, 

"  You  Sir,  you  never  buy  a  book. 

Therefore  in  one  you  shall  not  look." 

The  boy  pass'd  slowl}'  on,  and  with  a  sigh 

He  wish'd  he  never  had  been  taught  to  read, 

Then  of  the  old  chun's  books  he  should  have  had  a    v«ad. 

Of  sufferings  the  poor  have  many. 

Which  never  can  the  rich  annoy: 

I  soon  perceived  another  boy, 

Who  look'd  as  if  he  had  not  any 

Food,  for  that  day  at  least,  —  enjoy 

The  sight  of  cold  meat  in  a  tavern  larder. 

This  boy's  case,  then  thought  I,  is  surely  harder, 

Thus  hungry,  longing,  thus  without  a  penny. 

Beholding  choice  of  dainty-dressed  meat: 

No  wonder  if  he  wish  he  ne'er  had  lear.i'  i  to  eat 


STAGE  ILLUSION.  281 


STAGE  ILLUSION. 


A  PLAY  is  said  to  be  well  or  ill  acted,  in  proportion 
to  the  scenical  illusion  produced.  Whether  such  illu- 
sion can  in  any  case  be  perfect,  is  not  the  question. 
The  nearest  approach  to  it,  we  are  told,  is,  when  the 
actor  appears  wholly  unconscious  of  the  presence  of 
spectators.  In  tragedy  —  in  all  which  is  to  affect  the 
feehngs  —  this  undivided  attention  to  his  stage  busi- 
ness seems  indispensable.  Yet  it  is,  in  fact,  dispensed 
with  every  day  by  our  cleverest  tragedians  ;  and  while 
these  references  to  an  audience,  in  the  shape  of  rant  oi 
sentiment,  are  not  too  frequent  or  palpable,  a  sufficient 
quantity  of  illusion  for  the  purposes  of  dramatic  interest 
may  be  said  to  be  produced  in  spite  of  them.  But, 
tragedy  apart,  it  may  be  inquired  whether,  in  certain 
characters  in  comedy,  especially  those  which  are  a  little 
extravagant,  or  which  involve  some  notion  repugnant 
to  the  moral  sense,  it  is  not  a  proof  of  the  highest  skill 
in  the  comedian  when,  without  absolutely  appealing  to 
an  audience,  he  keeps  up  a  tacit  understanding  with 
them ;  and  makes  them,  unconsciously  to  themselves,  a 
party  in  the  scene.  The  utmost  nicety  is  required  in 
the  mode  of  doing  this;  but  we  speak  only  of  the  great 
artists  in  the  profession. 

The  most  mortifying  infirmity  in  human  nature,  to 
feel  in  ourselves,  or  to  contemplate  in  another,  is,  per- 
haps, cowardice.  To  see  a  coward  done  to  the  life  upon 
a  stage  would  produce  anything  but  mu'th.  Yet  we 
most  of  us  remember  Jack  Bannister's  cowards.  Could 
inytliing  be  more  agreeable,  more  pleasant  ?    We  lo\  ed 


282  STAGE   ILLUSION. 

the  rogues.  How  was  this  effected  but  by  the  exquisite 
art  of  the  actor  in  a  perpetual  sub-insinuation  to  us, 
the  spectators,  even  in  the  extremity  of  the  shaking 
fit,  that  he  was  not  half  such  a  coward  as  we  took  him 
for  ?  We  saw  all  the  common  symptoms  of  the  malady 
upon  him ;  the  quivering  lip,  the  cowermg  knees,  the 
teeth  chattering ;  and  could  have  sworn  "  that  man 
was  fi'io-htened."  But  we  forgot  all  the  while  —  or 
kept  it  almost  a  secret  to  ourselves  —  that  he  never 
once  lost  his  self-possession  ;  that  he  let  out  by  a  thou- 
sand droll  looks  and  gestures  —  meant  at  ms,  and  not  at 
all  supposed  to  be  visible  to  his  fellows  in  the  scene, 
that  his  confidence  in  his  own  resources  had  never  once 
deserted  him.  Was  this  a  genuine  picture  of  a  cow- 
ard ?  or  not  rather  a  likeness,  which  the  clever  artist 
contrived  to  palm  upon  us  instead  of  an  original ;  while 
we  secretly  connived  at  the  delusion  for  the  purpose  of 
greater  pleasure,  than  a  more  genuine  counterfeiting  of 
the  imbecility,  helplessness,  and  utter  self-desertion, 
wliich  we  know  to  be  concomitants  of  cowardice  in  real 
life,  could  have  given  us  ? 

Why  are  misers  so  hateful  in  the  world,  and  so 
endurable  on  the  stage,  but  because  the  skilful  actor, 
by  a  sort  of  sub-reference,  rather  than  direct  appeal  to 
us,  disarms  the  character  of  a  great  deal  of  its  odious^ 
ness,  by  seeming  to  engage  our  compassion  for  the  in- 
Hecure  tenure  by  which  he  holds  his  money-bags  and 
parchments  ?  By  this  subtle  vent  half  of  the  hateful- 
ness  of  the  character  —  the  self-closeness  with  which  in 
real  life  it  coils  itself  up  fi'om  the  sympathies  of  men  — 
evaporates.  The  miser  becomes  sympathetic ;  i.  e.  is 
no  genuine  miser.  Here  again  a  diverting  likeness  is 
substituted  for  a  very  disagreeable  reality. 


STAGE   ILLUSION.        '  283 

Spleen,  irritability  —  the  pitiable  infirmities  of  old 
men,  which  produce  only  pain  to  behold  in  the  realities, 
counterfeited  upon  a  stage,  divert  not  altogether  for  the 
comic  appendages  to  them,  but  in  part  from  an  inner 
conviction  that  they  are  being  acted  before  us  ;  that  a 
likeness  only  is  going  on,  and  not  the  thing  itself. 
They  please  by  being  done  under  the  life,  or  besiile 
it ;  not  to  the  life.  When  Gattie  acts  an  old  man,  is 
he  angry  indeed?  or  only  a  pleasant  counterfeit,  just 
enough  of  a  likeness  to  recognize,  without  pressing  upon 
us  the  uneasy  sense  of  a  reality  ? 

Comedians,  paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  may  be  too 
natural.  It  was  the  case  with  a  late  actor.  Nothing 
could  be  more  earnest  or  true  than  the  manner  of  Mr. 
Emery ;  this  told  excellently  in  his  Tyke,  and  char- 
acters of  a  tragic  cast.  But  when  he  carried  the  same 
rigid  exclusiveness  of  attention  to  the  stage  business, 
and  wilfal  blindness  and  oblivion  of  everything  before 
the  curtain  into  his  comedy,  it  produced  a  harsh  and 
dissonant  effect.  He  was  out  of  keeping  with  the  rest 
of  the  Personce  Dramatis.  There  was  as  little  link 
between  him  and  them,  as  betwixt  himself  and  the 
audience.  He  was  a  third  estate,  dry,  repulsive,  and 
unsocial  to  all.  Individually  considered,  his  execution 
was  masterly.  But  comedy  is  not  this  unbending 
thing ;  for  this  reason,  that  the  same  degi'ee  of  credi- 
bility is  not  required  of  it  as  to  serious  scenes.  The 
degrees  of  credibility  demanded  to  the  two  things,  may 
be  illustrated  by  the  different  sort  of  truth  which  we 
expect  when  a  man  tells  us  a  mournful  or  a  merry 
story.  If  we  suspect  the  former  of  falsehood  in  any 
one  tittle,  we  reject  it  altogether.  Our  tears  refuse  to 
flow  at   a  suspected  imposition.     But  the  teller  of  a 


284  STAGE  ILLUSION. 

mirthful  tale  has  latitude  allowed  him.  We  are  con- 
tent with  less  than  absolute  truth.  'Tis  the  same  with 
dramatic  illusion.  We  confess  we  love  in  comedy  to 
see  an  audience  naturalized  behind  the  scenes,  taken 
into  the  interest  of  the  drama,  welcomed  as  by-standers 
however.  There  is  something;  ungracious  in  a  comic 
actor  holding  himself  aloof  from  all  participation  or 
concern  with  those  who  are  come  to  b.e  diverted  by 
him.  Macbeth  must  see  the  dagger,  and  no  ear  but  his 
own  be  told  of  it ;  but  an  old  fool  in  farce  may  think 
he  sees  something,  and  by  conscious  words  and  looks 
express  it,  as  plainly  as  he  can  speak,  to  pit,  box,  and 
gallery.  When  an  impertinent  in  tragedy,  an  Osric, 
for  instance,  breaks  in  upon  the  serious  passions  of  the 
scene,  we  approve  of  the  contempt  with  which  he  is 
treated.  But  w4ien  the  pleasant  impertinent  of  comedy, 
in  a  piece  purely  meant  to  give  delight,  and  raise  mirth' 
out  of  whimsical  perplexities,  worries  the  studious  man 
with  taking  up  his  leisure,  or  making  his  house  his 
home,  the  same  sort  of  contempt  expressed  (however 
naturaV)  would  destroy  the  balance  of  delight  in  the 
spectators.  To  make  the  intrusion  comic,  the  actor 
who  plays  the  annoyed  man  must  a  little  desert 
nature ;  he  must,  in  short,  be  thinking  of  the  audience, 
and  express  only  so  much  dissatisfaction  and  peevish- 
ness as  is  consistent  with  the  pleasure  of  comedy.  In 
other  words,  his  perplexity  must  seem  half  put  on.  If 
ho  repel  the  intruder  with  the  sober  set  face  of  a  man 
in  earnest,  and  more  especially  if  he  deliver  his  ex- 
postulations in  a  tone  which  in  the  world  must  neces- 
sarily provoke  a  duel ;  his  real-life  manner  will  destroy 
the  whimsical  and  purely  dramatic  existence  of  the 
other  character  (which   to  render  it  comic    demands 


TO  THE  SHADE  OF  ELLISTON.         285 

an  antagonist  comicality  on  the  part  of  the  character 
opposed  to  it),  and  convert  what  was  meant  for  mirth, 
rather  than  behef,  into  a  downright  piece  of  imperti- 
nence indeed,  which  would  raise  no  diversion  in  us,  but 
rather  stir  pain,  to  see  inflicted  in  earnest  upon  any 
unworthy  person.  A  very  judicious  actor  (in  most  of 
his  parts)  seems  to  have  fallen  into  an  error  of  this  sort 
in  his  playing  with  Mr.  Wrench  in  the  farce  of  Free 
and  Easy. 

Many  instances  would  be  tedious  ;  these  may  suffice 
to  show  that  comic  acting  at  least  does  not  always 
demand  from  the  performer  that  strict  abstraction  from 
all  reference  to  an  audience  which  is  exacted  of  it ; 
but  that  in  some  cases  a  sort  of  compromise  may  take 
place,  and  all  the  purposes  of  dramatic  delight  be  at- 
tained by  a  judicious  understanding,  not  too  openly 
announced,  between  the  ladies  and  gentlemen  —  on 
both  sides  of  the  curtain. 


TO   THE   SHADE   OF   ELLISTON. 

JoYOUSEST  of  once  embodied  spirits,  whither  ai 
length  hast  thou  flown  ?  to  what  genial  'region  are 
we  permitted  to  conjecture  that  thou  hast  flitted  ? 

Art  thou  sowing  thy  wild  oats  yet  (the  harvest 
time  was  still  to  come  with  thee)  upon  casual  sands 
of  Avemus  ?  or  art  thou  enacting  Rover  (as  we  would 
gladlier  think)  by  wandering  Elysian  streams  ? 

This  mortal  frame,  while  thou  didst  play  thy  brief 


286  TO  THE   SHADE   Of'  ELLISTON. 

antics  amongst  us,  was  in  truth  anything  but  a  prison 
to  thee,  as  the  vain  Platonist  dreams  of  this  hod^/  to 
be  no  better  than  a  county  jail,  forsooth,  or  some 
house  of  durance  vile,  whereof  the  five  senses  are 
the  fetters.  Thou  knewest  better  than  to  be  in  a 
huiTy  to  cast  off  those  gyves;  and  had  notice  to  quit, 
I  fear,  before  thou  wert  quite  ready  to  abandon  this 
fleshy  tenement.  It  was  thy  Pleasure-House,  thy 
Palace  of  Dainty  Devices  ;  thy  Louvre,  or  thy  White- 
Hall. 

Wliat  new  mysterious  lodgings  dost  thou  tenant 
now  ?  or  when  may  we  expect  thy  aerial  house- 
warming  ? 

Tartarus  we  know,  and  we  have  read  of  the  Blessed 
Shades ;  now  cannot  I  intelligibly  fancy  thee  in  either. 

Is  it  too  much  to  hazard  a  conjecture,  that  (as  the 
schoolmen  admitted  a  receptacle  apart  for  Patriarchs 
and  un-chrisom  babes)  there  may  exist  —  not  far  per- 
chance from  that  storehouse  of  all  vanities,  which 
Milton  saw  in  vision  —  a  Limbo  somewhere  for 
Players?  and  that 

Up  thither  like  aerial  vapors  fly 

Both  all  Stage  things,  and  all  that  in  Stage  things 

Built  their  fond  hopes  of  glory,  or  lasting  fame? 

All  the  unaccomplished  works  of  Authors'  hands, 

Abortive,  monstrous,  or  unkindly  mixed, 

Damn'd  upon  earth,  fleet  thither  — 

Play,  Opera,  Farce,  with  all  their  trumpery. 

There,  by  the  neighboring  moon  (by  some  not  im 
properly   supposed    thy  Regent   Planet   upon   earth), 
mayst  thou  not  still  be  acting  thy  managerial  pranks, 
great  disembodied  Lessee?   but  Lessee  still,  and  still  a 
manacer. 


TO  THE  SHADE   OF  ELUSION.  287 

In  Green  Rooms,  impervious  to  mortal  eye,  tlie  muse 
beholds  thee  wielding  posthumous  empire. 

Thin  ghosts  of  Figurantes  (never  plump  on  earth) 
circle  thee  in  endlessly,  and  still  their  song  is  Fie  on 
sinful  Fantasy/  ! 

Magnificent  were  thy  capriccios  on  this  globe  of 
earth,  Robert  William  Elliston  !  for  as  yet  we 
know  not  thy  new  name  in  heaven. 

It  irks  me  to  think,  that,  stript  of  thy  regalities,  thou 
shouldst  feriy  over,  a  poor  forked  shade,  in  crazy  Sty- 
gian wherry.  Methinks  I  hear  the  old  boatman,  pad- 
dling by  the  weedy  wharf,  with  rancid  voice,  bawling 
"  Sculls,  Sculls  ;  "  to  which,  with  waving  hand,  and 
majestic  action,  thou  deignest  no  reply,  other  than  in 
two  curt  monosyllables,  "  No :  Oars." 

But  the  laws  of  Pluto's  kingdom  know  small  differ 
ence  between  king  and  cobbler ;  manager  and  call- 
boy  ;  and,  if  haply  your  dates  of  life  were  conter- 
minant,  you  are  quietly  taking  your  passage,  cheek  by 
cheek  (O  ignoble  levelling  of  Death)  with  tlie  shade 
of  some  recently  departed  candle-snuffer. 

But  mercy  !  what  strippings,  what  tearing  off  ot 
histrionic  robes,  and  private  vanities !  what  denuda- 
tions to  the  bone,  before  the  surly  Fenyman  will  admit 
you  to  set  a  foot  within  his  battered  lighter. 

Crowns,  sceptres  ;  shield,  sword,  and  truncheon  ;  thy 
own  coronation  robes  (for  thou  hast  brought  the  whole 
property-man's  wardrobe  with  thee,  enough  to  sink  a 
navy)  ;  the  judge's  ermine ;  the  coxcomb's  wig ;  the 
snuffboj:  a  la  Foppington,  —  all  must  overboard,  he 
positively  swears,  —  and  that  Ancient  Mariner  brooks 
no  denial ;  for,  since  the  tiresome  monodrame  of  the 
old  Thracian  Harper,  Charon,  it  is  to  be  believed,  hath 
shown  small  taste  for  theatricals. 


288  TO  THE   SHADE   OF  ELLISTON. 

Ay,  now  'tis  done.  You  are  just  boat-weiglit ;  pura 
et  puta  anima. 

But,  bless  me,  liow  little  you  look ! 

So  shall  we  all  look  —  kings  and  keysars  —  stripped 
for  the  last  voyage. 

But  the  murky  rogue  pushes  off.  Adieu,  pleasant, 
and  thrice  pleasant  shade  !  with  my  parting  thanks  for 
many  a  heavy  hour  of  life  lightened  by  thy  harmless 
extravaganzas,  public  or  domestic. 

Rhadamanthus,  who  tries  the  lighter  causes  below, 
leaving  to  his  two  brethren  the  heavy  calendars,  —  hon- 
est Rhadamanth,  always  partial  to  players,  weighing 
their  parti-colored  existence  here  upon  earth,  —  making 
account  of  the  few  foibles,  that  may  have  shaded  thy 
real  life,  as  we  call  it,  (though,  substantially,  scarcely 
less  a  vapor  than  thy  idlest  vagaries  upon  the  boards  of 
Drury,)  as  but  of  so  many  echoes,  natural  repercus- 
sions, and  results  to  be  expected  from  the  assumed  ex- 
travagances of  thy  secondary  or  7nock  life,  nightly  upon 
a  stage,  —  after  a  lenient  castigation,  with  rods  lighter 
than  of  those  Medusean  ringlets,  but  just  enough  to 
"  whip  the  offending  Adam  out  of  thee,"  shall  cjurte- 
ously  dismiss  thee  at  the  right-hand  gate  —  the  o.  P. 
side  of  Hades  —  that  conducts  to  masks  and  merry- 
makings in  the  Theatre  Royal  of  Proseq)ine. 

PLAUDITO,  ET   VALETO. 


ELLISTONIANA.  289 


ELLISTONIANA. 


My  acquaintance  with  the  pleasant  creature,  whose 
loss  we  all  deplore,  was  but  slight. 

My  first  introduction  to  E.,  which  afterwards  ripened 
into  an  acquaintance  a  little  on  this  side  of  intimacy, 
was  over  a  counter  in  the  Leamington  Spa  Library, 
then  newly  entered  upon  by  a  branch  of  his  family. 
E.,  whom  nothing  misbecame to  auspicate,  I  sup- 
pose, the  filial  concern,  and  set  it  a-going  with  a  lustre, 
—  was  serving  in  person  two  damsels  fair,  who  had  come 
into  the  shop  ostensibly  to  inquire  for  some  new  publi- 
cation, but  in  reality  to  have  a  sight  of  the  illustrious 
shopman,  hoping  some  conference.  With  what  an  air 
did  he  reach  down  the  volume,  dispassionately  gi'ving 
his  opinion  of  the  worth  of  the  work  in  question,  and 
launching  out  into  a  dissertation  on  its  comparative 
merits  with  those  of  certain  publications  of  a  similar 
stamp,  its  rivals !  his  enchanted  customers  fairly  hang- 
ing on  his  lips,  subdued  to  their  authoritative  sentence. 
So  have  I  seen  a  gentleman  in  comedy  acting  the  shop- 
man. So  Lovelace  sold  his  o-loves  in  Kino;  Street.  I 
admired  the  histrionic  art,  by  which  he  contrived  to 
carry  clean  away  every  notion  of  disgrace,  from  the 
occupation  he  had  so  generously  submitted  to ;  and 
from  that  hour  I  judged  him,  with  no  after  repentance, 
to  be  a  person  with  whom  it  would  be  a  felicity  to  be 
more  acquainted. 

To  descant  upon  his  merits  as  a  Comedian  would 
be  superfluous.  With  his  blended  private  and  profes- 
sional   habits   alone   I   have    to   do ;    that   harmonious 

VOL.   III.  19 


290  ELLISTONIANA. 

fusion  of  tlie  manners  of  the  player  into  those  of  every- 
day hfe,  which  brought  the  stage  boards  into  streets, 
and  dining-parlors,  and  kept  up  tlie  play  when  the 
play  was  ended.  "  I  like  Wrench,"  a  fi'iend  "vas  say- 
ing to  him  one  day,  "  because  he  is  the  same,  natural, 
easy  creature,  on  the  stage,  that  he  is  offy  "  My  caso 
exactly,"  retorted  Elliston,  —  with  a  charmhig  forget- 
fulness,  that  the  converse  of  a  proposition  does  not  al- 
ways lead  to  the  same  conclusion,  —  "I  am  the  same 
person  off  the  stage  that  I  am  on."  The  inference,  at 
first  sight,  seems  identical ;  but  examine  it  a  little,  and 
it  confesses  only,  that  the  one  performer  was  never, 
and  the  other  always,  acting. 

And  in  truth  this  was  the  charm  of  Elliston's  private 
deportment.  You  had  spirited  performance  always 
going  on  before  your  eyes,  with  nothing  to  pay.  As 
where  a  monarch  takes  up  his  casual  abode  for  a  night, 
the  poorest  hovel  which  he  honors  by  his  sleeping  in  it, 
becomes  ipso  facto  for  that  time  a  palace ;  so  wherever 
Elliston  Avalked,  sat,  or  stood  still,  there  was  the  the- 
atre. He  carried  about  with  him  his  pit,  boxes,  and 
galleries,  and  set  up  his  portable  playhouse  at  corners  of 
streets,  and  in  the  market-places.  Upon  flintiest  pave- 
ments  he  trod  the  boards  still ;  and  if  his  theme  chanced 
to  be  passionate,  the  green  baize  carpet  of  tragedy 
spontaneously  rose  beneath  his  feet.  Now  this  was 
hearty,  and  showed  a  love  for  his  art.  So  Apelles  aU 
ways  painted  —  in  thought.  So  G.  D.  always  poetizes. 
I  hate  a  lukewarm  artist.  I  have  known  actors  —  and 
some  of  them  of  Elliston's  own  stamp  —  who  shall  have 
agreeably  been  amusing  3'ou  in  the  part  of  a  rake  or  a 
coxcomb,  through  the  two  or  three  hours  of  their  dra- 
matic existence ;    but  no  sooner  does   the  curtain  %11 


ELLISTONIANA.  291 

with  its  leaden  clatter,  but  a  spirit  of  lead  seems  to 
seize  on  all  their  faculties.  They  emerge  sour,  morose 
persons,  intolerable  to  their  families,  servants,  &c. 
Another  shall  have  been  expanding  your  heart  with 
generous  deeds  and  sentiments,  till  it  even  beats  with 
yearnings  of  universal  sympathy ;  you  absolutely  long 
to  go  home  and  do  some  good  action.  The  play  seems 
tedious,  till  you  can  get  fairly  out  of  the  house,  and 
reahze  your  laudable  intentions.  At  length  the  final 
bell  rings,  and  this  cordial  representative  of  all  that  is 
amiable  in  human  breasts  steps  forth  —  a  miser.  Ellis- 
ton  was  more  of  a  piece.  Did  he  play  Ranger  ?  and 
did  Ranger  fill  the  general  bosom  of  the  town  with  satis- 
faction ?  why  should  lie  not  be  Ranger,  and  diffuse  the 
same  cordial  satisfaction  among  his  private  circles  ?  with 
his  temperament,  Ms  animal  spirits,  Ms  good-nature.  Mis 
follies  perchance,  could  he  do  better  than  identify  him- 
self with  his  impersonation  ?  Are  we  to  like  a  pleasant 
rake,  or  coxcomb,  on  the  stage,  and  give  ourselves  airs 
of  aversion  for  the  identical  character,  presented  to  us  in 
actual  life  ?  or  what  would  the  performer  have  gained 
by  divesting  himself  of  the  impersonation  ?  Could  the 
man  Elliston  have  been  essentially  different  from  his 
part,  even  if  he  had  avoided  to  reflect  to  us  studiously, 
in  private  circles,  the  airy  briskness,  the  forwardness, 
and  scape-goat  trickeries  of  his  prototype  ? 

"  But  there  is  something  not  natural  in  this  everlast- 
ing acting  ;  we  want  the  real  man." 

Are  you  quite  sure  that  it  is  not  the  man  himself, 
whom  you  cannot,  or  will  not  see,  under  some  adventi- 
tious trappings,  which,  nevertheless,  sit  not  at  all  incon- 
sistently upon  him  ?  What  if  it  is  the  nature  of  some 
men  to  be  highly  artificial  ?     The  fiiult  is  least  repre- 


292  ELLISTONIANA. 

hensible  in  players.  Gibber  was  his  own  Foppington, 
with  almost  as  much  wit  as  Vanbrugh  could  add  to  it. 

"  My  conceit  of  his  person,"  —  it  is  Ben  Jonson 
speaking  of  Lord  Bacon,  —  "  was  never  increased  tow- 
ards him  by  his  ^lace  or  honors.  But  I  have,  and  do 
reverence  him  for  the  greatness.,  that  was  only  proper 
to  himself;  in  that  he  seemed  to  me  ever  one  of  the 
greatest  men,  that  had  been  in  many  ages.  In  his  ad- 
versity I  ever  prayed  that  Heaven  would  give  him 
strength  ;  for  greatness  he  could  not  want." 

The  quality  here  commended  was  scarcely  less  con- 
spicuous in  the  subject  of  these  idle  reminiscences  than 
in  my  Lord  Verulam.  Those  who  have  imagined  that 
an  unexpected  elevation  to  the  direction  of  a  great 
London  Theatre  affected  the  consequence  of  Elliston, 
or  at  all  changed  his  nature,  knew  not  the  essential 
greatness  of  the  man  whom  they  disparage.  It  was  my 
fortune  to  encounter  him  near  St.  Dunstan's  Church 
(which,  with  its  punctual  giants,  is  now  no  more  than 
dust  and  a  shadow),  on  the  morning  of  his  election  to 
that  high  office.  Grasping  my  hand  with  a  look  of 
significance,  he  only  uttered,  —  "  Have  you  heard  the 
news  ?  "  —  then,  with  another  look  following  up  the 
blow,  he  subjoined,  "  I  am  the  future  Manager  of 
Drury  Lane  Theatre."  Breathless  as  he  saw  me,  he 
stayed  not  for  congratulation  or  reply,  but  mutely 
stalked  away,  leaving  me  to  chew  upon  his  new-blown 
dignities  at  leisure.  In  fact,  nothing  could  be  said  to 
it.  Expressive  silence  alone  could  muse  his  praise. 
This  was  in  his  great  style. 

But  was  he  less  great.,  (be  witness,  O  ye  Powers  of 
Equanimity,  that  supported  in  the  ruins  of  Garthage 
the  consular  exile,  and  more  recently  transmuted,  for 


ELLISTONIANA.  293 

a  more  illustrious  exile,  the  barren  constableship  of 
Elba  into  an  image  of  Imperial  France,)  when,  in 
melancholy  after-years,  again,  much  near  the  same 
spot,  I  met  him,  when  that  sceptre  had  been  wrested 
from  his  hand,  and  his  dominion  was  curtailed  to  the 
petty  managership,  and  part  proprietorship,  of  the  small 
Olympic,  Im  Elba?  He  still  played  nightly  upon  the 
boards  of  Drury,  but  in  parts,  alas  !  allotted  to  him, 
not  magnificently  distributed  by  him.  Wai^'ing  his 
great  loss  as  nothing,  and  magnificently  sinking  the 
sense  of  fallen  material  grandeur  in  the  more  liberal 
resentment  of  depreciations  done  to  his  more  lofty  in- 
tellectual  pretensions,  "  Have  you  heard  "  (his  custom- 
ary exordium)  —  "  have  you  heard,"  said  he,  "  how 
they  treat  me  ?  they  put  me  in  comedy."  Thought  I  — 
but  his  finger  on  his  lips  forbade  any  verbal  interrup- 
tion — "  where  could  they  have  put  you  better  ?  " 
Then,  after  a  pause  — "  Where  I  formerly  played 
Romeo,  I  now  play  Mercutio,"  —  and  so  again  he 
stalked  away,  neither  staying,  nor  caring  for,  responses. 

O,  it  was  a  rich  scene,  —  but  Sir  A C ,  the 

best  of  story-tellers  and  surgeons,  who  mends  a  lame 
narrative  almost  as  well  as  he  sets  a  fracture,  alone 
could  do  justice  to  it,  —  that  I  was  a  witness  to,  in  the 
tarnished  room  (that  had  once  been  green)  of  that 
same  little  Olympic.  There,  after  his  deposition  from 
Imperial  Drury,  he  substituted  a  throne.  That  Olym- 
pic Hill  was  his  "  highest  heaven  ;  "  himself  "  Jove  in 
his  chair."  There  he  sat  in  state,  while  before  him,  on 
complaint  of  prompter,  was  brought  for  judgment  — 
how  shall  I  describe  her  ?  —  one  of  those  little  tawdry 
things  that  flirt  at  the  tails  of  chorusses —  a  probationer 
for  the  town,  in  either  of  its  senses  —  the  pertest  little 


21)4  ELLISTONIANA. 

drab  —  a  dirty  fringe  and  appendage  of  the  lamps' 
Bmoke  —  who,  it  seems,  on  some  disapprobation  ex- 
pressed by  a  "  highly  respectable  "  audience,  —  had 
precipitately  quitted  her  station  on  the  boards,  and 
withdrawn  her  small  talents  in  disgust. 

"And  how  dare  you,"  said  her  manager,  —  assum- 
mg  a  censorial  severity,  which  would  have  crushed  the 
confidence  of  a  Vestris,  and  disarmed  that  beautiful 
Rebel  herself  of  her  professional  caprices,  —  I  verily 
believe,  he  thought  her  standing  before  him,  —  "  how 
dare  you.  Madam,  withdraw  yourself,  without  a  notice, 
from  your  theatrical  duties ?  "  "I  was  hissed,  Sir." 
*'And  you  have  the  presumption  tc  decide  upon  the 
taste  of  the  town  ?  "  "I  don't  know  that.  Sir,  but  I 
will  never  stand  to  be  hissed,"  was  the  subjoinder  of 
young  Confidence,  —  when  gathering  up  his  features 
into  one  significant  mass  of  wonder,  pity,  and  expostu- 
latory  indignation  —  in  a  lesson  never  to  have  been 
lost  upon  a  creatui'e  less  forward  than  she  who  stood 
before  him,  —  his  words  were  these  :  "  They  have 
hissed  me." 

'Twas  the  identical  argument  a  fortiori^  which  the 
son  of  Peleus  uses  to  Lycaon  trembling  under  his 
lance,  to  persuade  him  to  take  his  destiny  with  a  good 
grace.  "  I  too  am  mortal."  And  it  is  to  be  believed 
that  in  both  cases  the  rhetoric  missed  of  its  application, 
for  want  of  a  proper  understanding  with  the  faculties  of 
the  respective  recipients. 

"  Quite  an  Opera  pit,"  he  said  to  me,  as  he  was 
courteously  conducting  me  over  the  benches  of  his 
Surrey  Theatre,  the  last  retreat,  and  recess,  of  his 
every-day  waning  grandeur. 

Those  who  knew  Elliston,  will  know  the  manner  in 


ELLISTONIANA.  296 

which  he  pronounced  the  latter  sentence  of  the  few 
words  I  am  about  to  record.  One  proud  day  to  me  he 
took  his  roast  mutton  with  us  in  tlie  Temple,  to  which 
I  had  superadded  a  preliminary  haddock.  After  a 
rather  plentiful  partaking  of  the  meagre  banquet,  not 
unrefreshed  with  the  humbler  sort  of  liquors,  I  made  a 
sort  of  apology  for  the  humility  of  the  fare,  observing 
that  for  my  own  part  I  never  ate  but  one  dish  at 
dinner.  "  I  too  never  eat  but  one  thing  at  dinner,"  — 
was  his  reply,  —  then,  after  a  pause,  —  "  reckoning  fish 
as  nothing."  The  manner  was  all.  It  was  as  if  by 
one  peremptory  sentence  he  had  decreed  the  annihila- 
tion of  all  the  savory  esculents,  which  the  pleasant  and 
nutritious-food-giving  Ocean  pours  forth  upon  poor 
humans  from  her  watery  bosom.  This  was  greatness, 
tempered  with  considerate  tenderness  to  the  feelings  of 
his  scanty  but  welcoming  entertainer. 

Gireat  wert  thou  in  thy  life,  Robert  William  Ellis- 
ton  !  and  Tiot  lessened  in  thy  death,  if  report  speak 
truly,  which  says  that  thou  didst  direct  that  thy  mortal 
remains  should  repose  under  no  inscription  but  one  of 
pure  Latinity.  Classical  was  thy  bringing  up !  and 
beautiful  was  the  feeling  on  thy  last  bed,  which,  con- 
necting the  man  with  the  boy,  took  thee  back  to  thy 
latest  exercise  of  imagination,  to  the  days  when,  un- 
dreaming of  Theatres  and  Managerships,  thou  wert  a 
scholar,  and  an  early  ripe  one,  under  the  roofs  builded 
by  the  munificent  and  pious  Colet.  For  thee  the 
Pauline  Muses  weep.  In  elegies,  that  shall  silence  this 
crude  prose,  they  shall  celebrate  thy  praise. 


296  THE   OLD    MARGATE   HOY. 


THE   OLD   MARGATE  HOY 

1  AM  fond  of  passing  my  vacations  (I  believe  I  hayts 
Eaid  so  before)  at  one  or  other  of  the  Universities. 
Next  to  these  my  choice  would  fix  me  at  some  woody 
spot,  such  as  the  neighborhood  of  Henley  affords  in 
abundance,  on  the  banks  of  my  beloved  Thames.  But 
somehow  or  other  my  cousin  contrives  to  wheedle  me, 
once  in  three  or  four  seasons,  to  a  watering-place.  Old 
attachments  cling  to  her  in  spite  of  experience.  We 
have  been  dull  at  Worthing  one  summer,  duller  at 
Brighton  another,  dullest  at  Eastbourn  a  third,  and  are 
at  this  moment  doing  dreary  penance  at  —  Hastings ! 
—  and  all  because  we  were  happy  many  years  ago  for 
a  brief  week  at  Margate.  That  was  our  first  seaside 
experiment,  and  many  circumstances  combined  to  make 
it  the  most  agreeable  holiday  of  my  life.  We  had 
neither  of  us  seen  the  sea,  and  we  had  never  been  from 
home  so  long  together  in  company. 

Can  I  forget  thee,  thou  old  Margate  Hoy,  with  thy 
weather-beaten,  sunburnt  captain,  and  his  rough  ac- 
commodations, —  ill  exchanged  for  the  foppery  and 
freshwater  niceness  of  the  modern  steam-packet  ?  To 
the  winds  and  waves  thou  committedst  thy  goodly 
freightage,  and  didst  ask  no  aid  of  magic  fumes,  and 
spells,  and  boiling  caldrons.  With  the  gales  of  heaven 
thou  wentest  swimmingly ;  or,  when  it  was  their 
pleasure,  stoodest  still  with  sailor-like  patience.  Thy 
course  was  natural,  not  forced,  as  in  a  hotbed  ;  nor 
didst  thou  go  poisoning  the  breath  of  ocean  with  sul- 
phureous  smoke  —  a  great   sea    chimera,   chimneyhig 


THE   OLD   MARGATE   HOY.  297 

and  fiirnacing  the  deep ;  or  liker  to  that  fire-god  parch- 
ing up  Scamander. 

Can  I  forget  thy  honest,  yet  slender  crew,  with  their 
coy  reluctant  responses  (yet  to  the  suppression  of  any- 
thing like  contempt)  to  the  raw  questions,  which  we  of 
the  great  city  would  be  ever  and  anon  putting  to  them, 
as  to  the  uses  of  this  or  that  strange  naval  implement  ? 
'Specially  can  I  forget  thee,  thou  happy  medium,  thou 
shade  of  refuge  between  us  and  them,  conciliating  inter- 
preter of  their  skill  to  our  simplicity,  comfortable  am- 
bassador between  sea  and  land  !  —  whose  sailor-trousers 
did  not  more  convincingly  assure  thee  to  be  an  adopted 
denizen  of  the  former,  than  thy  white  cap,  and  whiter 
apron  over  them,  with  thy  neat-figured  practice  in  thy 
culinary  vocation,  bespoke  thee  to  have  been  of  inland 
nurture  heretofore,  —  a  master  cook  of  Eastcheap? 
How  busily  didst  thou  ply  thy  multifarious  occupation, 
cook,  mariner,  attendant,  chamberlain ;  here,  there, 
like  another  Ariel,  flaming  at  once  about  all  parts  of 
the  deck,  yet  with  kindlier  ministrations,  —  not  to 
assist  the  tempest,  but,  as  if  touched  with  a  kindred 
sense  of  our  infirmities,  to  soothe  the  qualms  which  that 
untried  motion  might  haply  raise  in  our  crude  land- 
fancies.  And  when  the  o'erwashino;  billows  drove  us 
below  deck,  (for  it  was  far  gone  in  October,  and  we 
had  stiff  and  blowing  weather,)  how  did  thy  officious 
ministerings,  still  catering  for  our  comfort,  with  cards, 
and  cordials,  and  thy  more  cordial  conversation,  alle- 
viate the  closeness  and  the  confinement  of  thy  else 
(truth  to  say)  not  very  savory,  nor  very  inviting, 
little  cabin  ? 

With  these  additaments  to  boot,  we  had  on  board  a 
fellow -passenger,  whose  discourse  in  verity  might  have 


298  THE    OLD    MARGATE   HOY. 

beguiled  a  longer  voyage  than  we  meditated,  and  have 
made  mirth  and  wonder  abomid  as  far  as  the  Azores. 
He  was  a  dark,  Spanish-complexioned  young  man,  re- 
markably handsome,  with  an  officer-like  assurance,  and 
an  insuppressible  volubility  of  assertion.  He  was,  in 
fact,  the  greatest  liar  I  had  met  with  then-  or  since. 
He  was  none  of  your  hesitating,  half  story-tellers  (a 
most  painful  description  of  mortals)  who  go  on  sound- 
ing your  belief,  and  only  giving  you  as  much  as  they 
see  you  can  swallow  at  a  time,  —  the  nibbling  pick- 
pockets of  your  patience,  —  but  one  who  committed 
downright,  daylight  depredations  upon  his  neighbor's 
faith.  He  did  not  stand  shivering  upon  the  brink,  but 
was  a  hearty,  thorough-paced  liar,  and  plunged  at  once 
into  the  depths  of  your  credulity.  I  partly  believe,  he 
made  pretty  sure  of  his  company.  Not  many  rich,  not 
many  wise,  or  learned,  composed  at  that  time  the  com- 
mon stowage  of  a  Margate  packet.  We  were,  I  am 
afraid,  a  set  of  as  unseasoned  Londoners  (let  our 
enemies  give  it  a  worse  name)  as  Aldermanbury,  or 
Watling  Street,  at  that  time  of  day  could  have  supplied. 
There  might  be  an  exception  or  two  among  us,  but  I 
scorn  to  make  any  invidious  distinctions  among  such  a 
jolly,  companionable  ship's  company,  as  those  were 
whom  I  sailed  with.  Something  too  must  be  conceded 
to  the  Crenius  Loci.  Had  the  confident  fellow  told  us 
half  the  legends  on  land,  which  he  favored  us  with  on 
the  other  element,  I  flatter  myself  the  good  sense  of 
most  of  us  would  have  revolted.  But  we  were  in  a 
new  world,  with  everything  unfamiliar  about  us,  and 
the  time  and  place  disposed  us  to  the  reception  of  any 
pi'odigious  marvel  whatsoever.  Time  has  obliterated 
fi'om  my  memory  much  of  his  wild  fablings  ;  and  the 


THE   OLD    MARGATE   HOY.  299 

rest  would  appear  but  dull,  as  written,  and  to  be  read 
on  shore.  He  had  been  aide-de-camp  (among  other 
rare  accidents  and  fortunes)  to  a  Persian  Prince,  and 
at  one  blow  had  stricken  off  the  head  of  the  King  of 
Cariraania  on  horseback.  He,  of  course,  married  the 
Prince's  daughter.  I  forget  what  unlucky  turn  in  the 
politics  of  that  court,  combining  with  the  loss  of  his 
consort,  was  the  reason  of  his  quitting  Persia ;  but, 
with  the  rapidity  of  a  magician,  he  transported  himself, 
along  with  his  hearers,  back  to  England,  where  we  still 
found  him  in  the  confidence  of  great  ladies.  There 
was  some  story  of  a  princess  —  Elizabeth,  if  I  remem- 
ber—  having  intrusted  to  his  care  an  extraordinary 
casket  of  jewels,  upon  some  extraordinary  occasion,  — 
but,  as  I  am  not  certain  of  the  name  or  circumstance  a', 
this  distance  of  time,  I  must  ■  leave  it  to  the  Roya> 
daughters  of  England  to  settle  the  honor  among  them 
selves  in  private.  I  cannot  call  to  mind  half  his  pleas 
ant  wonders  ;  but  I  perfectly  remember,  that  in  the. 
course  of  his  travels  he  had  seen  a  phoenix  ;  and  he 
obligingly  undeceived  us  of  the  vulgar  error,  that  there 
is  but  one  of  that  species  at  a  time,  assuring  us  that 
they  were  not  uncommon  in  some  parts  of  Upper 
Egypt.  Hitherto  he  had  found  the  most  implicit 
listeners.  His  dreaming  fancies  had  transported  us  be- 
yond the  "  ignorant  present."  But  when  (still  hardy- 
ing  more  and  more  in  his  triumphs  over  our  simplicity) 
he  went  on  to  affirm  that  he  had  actually  sailed  through 
the  legs  of  the  Colossus  at  Rhodes,  it  really  became 
necessary  to  make  a  stand.  And  here  I  must  do  justice 
to  the  good  sense  and  intrepidity  of  one  of  our  party,  a 
youth,  that  had  hitlierto  been  one  of  his  most  deferen- 
tial auditors,  who,  from  his  recent  reading,  made  bold 


300  THE   OLD   MARGATE    HOY. 

to  assure  tlie  gentleman,  that  there  must  be  some  mis- 
take, as  '  the  Colossus  in  question  had  been  destroyed 
long  since ; "  to  whose  opinion,  delivered  with  all 
modesty,  our  hero  was  obliging  enough  to  concede  thus 
much,  that  "  the  figure  was  indeed  a  little  damaged." 
This  was  the  only  opposition  he  met  with,  and  it  did 
not  at  all  seem  to  stagger  him,  for  he  proceeded  with 
his  fables,  which  the  same  youth  appeared  to  swallow 
with  still  more  complacency  than  ever,  —  confirmed, 
as  it  were,  by  the  extreme  candor  of  that  concession. 
With  these  prodigies  he  wheedled  us  on  till  we  came  in 
sight  of  the  Reculvers,  which  one  of  oiu"  own  company 
(having  been  the  voyage  before)  immediately  recog- 
nizing, and  pointing  out  to  us,  was  considered  by  us  as 
no  ordinary  seaman. 

All  this  time  sat  upon  the  edge  of  the  deck  quite  a 
different  character.  It  was  a  lad,  appai'ently  very  poor, 
veiy  infirm,  and  very  patient.  His  eye  was  ever  on 
the  sea,  with  a  smile ;  and,  if  he  caught  now  and  then 
some  snatches  of  these  wild  legends,  it  was  by  accident, 
and  they  seemed  not  to  concern  him.  The  waves  to 
him  whispered  more  pleasant  stories.  He  was  as  one, 
being  with  us,  but  not  of  us.  He  heai'd  the  bell  of 
dinner  ring  without  stu'ring ;  and  when  some  of  us 
pulled  out  our  private  stores  —  our  cold  meat  and  our 
salads,  —  he  produced  none,  and  seemed  to  Avant  none. 
Only  a  solitary  biscuit  he  had  laid  in  ;  provision  for  the 
one  or  two  days  and  nights,  to  which  these  vessels  then 
were  oftentimes  obliged  to  prolong  their  voyage.  Upon 
a  nearer  acquaintance  Avith  him,  which  he  seemed 
neither  to  court  nor  decline,  Ave  learned  that  he  Avas 
going  to  Margate,  Avith  the  hope  of  being  admitted  into 
the  Infirmary  there  for  sea-bathing.     His  disease  Avas  a 


THE   OLD   MARGATi:   HOY.  301 

Bcroiula,  which  appeared  to  have  eaten  all  over  him. 
He  expressed  great  hopes  of  a  cure ;  and  when  we 
a-^ked  him,  whether  he  had  any  friends  where  he  was 
going,  he  replied  "  he  had  no  fi'iends." 

These  pleasant,  and  some  mournful  passages  with  the 
first  sight  of  the  sea,  cooperating  with  youth,  and  a 
sense  of  holidays,  and  out-of-door  adventure,  to  me  that 
had  been  pent  up  in  po})ulous  cities  for  many  months 
before,  —  have  left  upon  my  mind  the  fragrance  as  of 
summer  days  gone  by,  bequeathing  nothing  but  their 
remembrance  for  cold  and  wintry  hours  to  chew  upon. 

Will  it  be  thought  a  digression  (it  may  spare  some 
unwelcome  comparisons)  if  I  endeavor  to  account  for 
the  dissatisfaction  which  I  have  heard  so  many  persons 
confess  to  have  felt  (as  I  did  myself  feel  in  part  on  this 
occasion)  at  the  sight  of  the  sea  for  the  first  time  f  I 
think  the  reason  usually  given — referring  to  the  in- 
capacity of  actual  objects  for  satisfying  our  preconcep- 
tions of  them  —  scarcely  goes  deep  enough  into  the 
question.  Let  the  same  person  see  a  lion,  an  elephant, 
a  mountain,  for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  and  he  shall 
perhaps  feel  himself  a  little  mortified.  The  things  do 
not  fill  up  that  space,  Avhich  the  idea  of  them  seemed  to 
take  up  in  his  mind.  But  they  have  still  a  correspond- 
ency to  his  first  notion,  and  in  time  grow  up  to  it,  so  as 
to  produce  a  very  similar  impression  ;  enlarging  them- 
selves (if  I  may  say  so)  upon  familiarity.  But  the  sea 
remains  a  disappointment.  Is  it  not,  that  in  the  latter 
we  had  expected  to  behold  (absurdly,  I  grant,  but,  I 
am  afraid,  by  the  law  of  imagination,  unavoidably)  not 
a  definite  object,  as  those  wild  beasts,  or  that  mountain 
compassable   by  the  eye,  but  all  the  sea  at  once,  tpib 

COMMENSURATE    ANTAGONIST     OF     THE     EARTH  ?       I     do 


802  THE   OLD   MARGATE   HOY. 

not  say  we  tell  ourselves  so  much,  but  the  craving  of 
the  mind  is  to  be  satisfied  with  nothing  less.  I  will 
suppose  the  case  of  a  young  person  of  fifteen  (as  I  then 
was)  knowing  nothing  of  the  sea,  but  from  description. 
He  comes  to  it  for  the  first  time,  — all  that  he  has  been 
reading  of  it  all  his  life,  and  that  the  most  enthusiastic 
part  of  life,  —  all  he  has  gathered  from  narratives  of 
wandering  seamen,  —  what  he  has  gained  from  true 
voyages,  and  what  he  cherishes  as  credulously  from  ro- 
mance and  poetry,  —  crowding  their  images,  and  exact- 
ing strange  tributes  from  expectation.  He  thinks  of 
the  great  deep,  and  of  those  who  go  down  unto  it ;  of 
its  thousand  isles,  and  of  the  vast  continents  it  washes , 
of  its  receiving  the  mighty  Plate,  or  Orellana,  into  ita 
bosom,  without  disturbance,  or  sense  of  augmentation  : 
of  Biscay  SAvells,  and  the  mariner, 

For  many  a  day,  and  many  a  dreadful  nigbt, 
Incessant  laboring  round  the  stormy  Cape ; 

of  fatal  rocks,  and  the  "  still- vexed  Bermoothes  ;  "  of 
great  whirlpools,  and  the  water-spout ;  of  sunken  ships, 
and  sumless  treasures  swallowed  up  in  the  vmrestoring 
depths ;  of  fishes  and  quaint  monsters,  to  which  all 
that  is  terrible  on  earth 

Be  but  as  buggs  to  frighten  babes  withal, 
Compared  with  the  creatures  in  the  sea's  entral; 

of  naked  savages,  and  Juan  Fernandez ;  of  pearls, 
and  shells  ;  of  coral  beds,  and  of  enchanted  isles ;  of 
mennaids'  grots ;  — 

I  do  not  assert  that  in  sober  earnest  he  expects  to  bo 
shown  all  these  wonders  at  once,  but  he  is  under  the 
tyranny  of  a  mighty  faculty,  which  haunts   him  with 


THE   OLD  MARGATE   HOY.  803 

confused  hints  and  shadows  of  all  these ;  ana  wl;en  the 
actual  object  opens  first  upon  him,  seen  (in  tame 
weather  too,  most  likely)  from  our  unromantic  coasts, 
■ — a  speck,  a  slip  of  sea- water,  as  it  shows  to  him, — ■ 
what  can  it  prove  but  a  very  unsatisfying  and  even 
diminutive  entertainment  ?  Or  if  he  has  come  to  it 
from  the  mouth  of  a  nver,  was  it  much  more  than  the 
river  widening  ?  and,  even  out  ot  sight  of  land,  what 
had  he  but  a  flat  watery  horizon  about  him,  nothing 
comparable  to  the  vast  o'er-curtaining  sky,  his  familiar 
object,  seen  daily  without  dread  or  amazement  ?  — 
Who,  in  similar  circumstances,  has  not  been  tempted  to 
exclaim  with  Charoba,  in  the  poem  of  Gebir, 

Is  this  the  mighty  ocean?  is  this  all? 

I  love  town,  or  country  ;  but  this  detestable  Cinque 
Port  is  neither.  I  hate  these  scrubbed  shoots,  thrusting 
out  their  starved  foliage  from  between  the  horrid  fis- 
sures of  dusty  innutritions  rocks  ;  which  the  amateur 
calls  "  verdure  to  the  edge  of  the  sea."  I  require 
woods,  and  they  show  me  stunted  coppices.  I  cry  out 
for  the  water-brooks,  and  pant  for  fresh  streams,  and 
inland  murmurs.  I  cannot  stand  all  day  on  the  naked 
beach,  watching  the  capricious  hues  of  the  sea,  shifting 
like  the  colors  of  a  dying  mullet.  I  am  tired  of  look- 
ing out  at  the  windows  of  this  island-prison.  I  would 
fain  retire  into  the  interior  of  my  cage.  While  I  gaze 
upon  the  sea,  I  want  to  be  on  it,  over  it,  across  it.  It 
•binds  me  in  with  chains,  as  of  iron.  My  thoughts  «ire 
abroad.  I  should  not  so  feel  in  Staffordshire.  There 
is  no  home  for  me  here.  There  is  no  sense  of  home 
at  Hastings.  It  is  a  place  of  fugitive  resort,  an  hete- 
rogeneous  assemblage  of  sea-mews  and  stockbrokers, 


504  THE   OLD   MARGATE   HOY. 

Amphitrites  of  the  town,  and  misses  that  coquet  with 
the  Ocean.  If  it  were  what  it  was  in  its  primitive 
shape,  and  what  it  ought  to  liave  remained,  a  fair, 
honest  fishing-town,  and  no  more,  it  were  something ;  — 
with  a  few  strao;o;hno;  fishermen's  huts  scattered  about, 
artless  as  its  chffs,  and  with  their  materials  filched  from 
them,  it  were  something.  I  coiild  abide  to  dwell  with 
Meshech  ;  to  assort  with  fisher-swains,  and  smugglers. 
There  are,  or  I  dream  there  are,  many  of  this  latter 
occupation  here.  Their  faces  become  the  place.  I 
like  a  smuggler.  He  is  the  only  honest  thief.  He 
robs  nothing  but  the  revenue,  —  an  abstraction  I  never 
greatly  cared  about.  I  could  go  out  with  them  in  their 
mackerel  boats,  or  about  their  less  ostensible  business, 
with  some  satisfaction.  I  can  even  tolerate  those  poor 
victims  to  monotony,  who  from  day  to  day  pace  along 
the  beach,  in  endless  progress  and  recurrence,  to  watch 
their  illicit  countrymen,  —  townsfolk  or  brethren  per- 
chance, —  whistling  to  the  sheathing  and  unsheathing 
of  their  cutlasses,  (their  only  solace,)  who,  under  the 
mild  name  of  preventive  service,  keep  up  a  legitimated 
civil  warfare  in  the  deplorable  absence  of  a  foreign  one, 
to  show  their  detestation  of  run  hollands,  and  zeal  for 
Old  England.  But  it  is  the  visitants  from  town,  that 
come  here  to  say  that  they  have  been  here,  with  no 
more  relish  of  the  sea  than  a  pond-perch  or  a  dace 
might  be  supposed  to  have,  that  are  my  aversion.  I 
feel  like  a  foolish  dace  in  these  regions,  and  have  as 
little  toleration  for  cayself  here  as  for  them.  What 
can  they  want  here  ?  if  they  had  a  true  relish  of 
the  ocean,  why  have  they  brought  all  this  land  lug 
gage  with  them  ?  or  why  i)itch  their  civilized  tents 
in  the  desert?     What  mean  these  scanty  book-rooms 


THE   OLD   MARGATE  HOY.  305 

• — marine  libraries  as  they  entitle  them  —  if  the  sea 
were,  as  they  would  have  us  believe,  a  book  "  to  read 
strano:e  matter  in  ? "  what  are  their  foolish  concert- 
rooms,  if  they  come,  as  they  would  fain  be  thought  to 
do,  to  listen  to  the  music  of  the  waves  ?  All  is  false 
and  hollow  pretension.  They  come,  because  it  is  tlie 
fasliion,  and  to  spoil  the  nature  of  the  place.  They 
are,  mostly,  as  I  have  said,  stockbrokers ;  \at  I  have 
watched  the  better  sort  of  them,  —  now  and  then,  an 
honest  citizen  (of  the  old  stamp),  in  the  simplicity  of 
his  heart,  shall  bring  down  his  wife  and  daughters,  to 
taste  the  sea-breezes.  I  always  know  the  date  of  their 
arrival.  It  is  easy  to  see  it  in  their  countenance.  A 
day  or  two  they  go  wandering  on  the  shingles,  picking 
up  cockle-shells,  and  thinking  them  great  things ;  but, 
m  a  poor  week,  imagination  slackens:  they  begin  to 
discover  that  cockles  produce  no  pearls,  and  then  —  O 
then !  —  if  I  could  interpret  for  the  pretty  creatures 
(I  know  they  have  not  the  courage  to  confess  it  them- 
selves), how  gladly  would  they  exchange  their  seaside 
rambles  for  a  Sunday-walk  on  the  greensward  of  their 
accustomed  Twickenham  meadows  ! 

I  would  ask  of  one  of  these  sea-charmed  emigrants, 
who  think  they  tinily  love  the  sea,  with  its  Avild  usages, 
what  would  their  feelings  be,  if  some  of  the  unsophis- 
ticated aborigines  of  this  place,  encouraged  by  their 
courteous  questionings  here,  should  venture,  on  the 
faith  of  such  assured  sympathy  between  them,  to  return 
the  visit,  and  come  uj)  to  see  —  London.  I  must 
imaffine  them  with  their  fishing-tackle  on  their  back, 
ab  we  carry  our  town  necessaries.  What  a  sensation 
would  it  cause  in  Lotlibury.  W.hat  vehement  laughter 
would  it  not  excite  ainoiig 

VOL.  III.  20 


806  THE   CONVALESCENT. 

The  daughters  of  Cheapside,  and  wives  of  Lombard  Street! 
I  am.  sure  that  no  town-bred  or  inland-bom  sub- 
jects can  feel  their  true  and  natural  nourishment  at 
these  sea-places.  Nature,  where  she  does  not  mean 
us  for  mariners  and  vagabonds,  bids  us  stay  at  home. 
The  salt  foam  seems  to  nourish  a  spleen.  I  am  not 
half  so  good-natured  as  by  the  milder  waters  'f  my 
natural  river.  I  would  exchange  these  sea-gulls  for 
swans,  and  scud  a  swallow  forever  about  the  banks  of 
Thamesis. 


THE   CONVALESCENT. 

A  PRETTY  severe  fit  of  indisposition  which,  under  the 
name  of  a  nervous  fever,  has  made  a  prisoner  of  me  for 
some  weeks  past,  and  is  but  slowly  leaving  me,  has 
reduced  me  to  an  incapacity  of  reflecting  upon  any 
topic  foreign  to  itself.  Expect  no  healthy  conclusions 
from  me  this  month,  reader  ;  I  can  offer  you  only  sick 
men's  dreams. 

And  truly  the  whole  state  of  sickness  is  such ;  for 
what  else  is  it  but  a  magnificent  dream  for  a  man  to  lie 
a-bed,  and  draw  daylight  curtains  about  him ;  and, 
shutting  out  the  sun,  to  induce  a  total  oblivion  of  all 
the  works  which  are  ffoins:  on  under  it  ?  To  become 
insensible  to  all  the  operations  of  life,  except  the  beat- 
ings of  one  feeble  pulse  ? 

If  there  be  a  regal  solitude,  it  is  a  sick-bed.  How 
the  patient  lords  it  there  ;  what  caprices  he  acts  with- 


niE   CONVALESCENT.  S(}lt 

out  control  !  how  kinglike  lie  sways  his  pillow  — 
tumbling,  and  tossing,  and  shifting,  and  lowering,  and 
thumping,  and  flatting,  and  moulding  it,  to  the  ever- 
varying  requisitions  of  his  throbbing  temples. 

He  changes  sides  oftener  than  a  politician.  Now  he 
lies  fiill  length,  then  half  length,  obliquely,  transversely, 
head  and  feet  quite  across  the  bed  ;  and  none  accuses 
him  of  tergiversation.  Within  the  four  curtains  he  is 
absolute.     They  are  his  Mare  Clausum. 

How  sickness  enlarges  the  dimensions  of  a  man's 
self  to  himself!  he  is  his  own  exclusive  object.  Su- 
preme selfishness  is  inculcated  upon  him  as  his  only 
duty.  'Tis  the  Two  Tables  of  the  Law  to  him.  He 
has  nothing  to  think  of  but  how  to  get  well.  What 
passes  out  of  doors,  or  within  tliem,  so  he  hear  not  the 
jarring  of  them,  affects  him  not. 

A  little  while  ago  he  was  greatly  concerned  in  the 
event  of  a  lawsuit,  which  was  to  be  the  making  or  the 
marring  of  his  dearest  fi'iend.  He  was  to  be  seen 
trudging  about  upon  this  man's  errand  to  fifty  quarters 
of  the  town  at  once,  jogging  this  witness,  refreshing 
that  solicitor.  The  cause  was  to  come  on  yesterday. 
He  is  absolutely  as  indifferent  to  the  decision,  as  if  it 
were  a  question  to  be  tried  at  Pekin.  Perad venture 
from  some  whispering,  going  on  about  the  house,  not 
intended  for  his  hearing,  he  picks  up  enough  to  make 
him  understand,  that  things  went  cross-grained  in  the 
Court  yesterday,  and  his  friend  is  ruined.  But  the 
word  "  friend,"  and  the  word  "  ruin,"  disturb  him  no 
more  than  so  much  jargon.  He  is  not  to  think  of  any- 
thino;  but  how  to  o-et  better. 

What  a  world  of  foreign  cares  are  merged  in  that 
absorbing  consideration  I 


308  THE  CONVALESCENT. 

He  has  put  on  the  strong  armor  of  sickness,  he  la 
wrapped  in  the  callous  hide  of  suffermg  ;  he  keeps  hb 
sympathy,  like  some  curious  vintage,  under  trusty  lock 
and  key,  for  his  own  use  only. 

He  lies  pitying  himself,  honing  and  moaning  to  him- 
self; he  yearneth  over  himself;  his  bowels  are  even 
melted  within  him,  to  think  what  he  suffers ;  he  is  not 
ashamed  to  weep  over  himself. 

He  is  forever  plotting  how  to  do  some  good  to 
himself;  studying  little  stratagems  and  artificial  alle- 
viations. 

He  makes  the  most  of  himself ;  dividing  himself,  by 
an  allowable  fiction,  into  as  many  distinct  individuals, 
as  he  hath  sore  and  sorrowing  members.  Sometimes 
he  meditates  —  as  of  a  thing  apart  from  him  —  upon 
his  poor  aching  head,  and  that  dull  pain  which,  dozing 
or  waking,  lay  in  it  all  the  past  night  like  a  log,  or 
palpable  substance  of  pain,  not  to  be  removed  without 
opening  the  very  skull,  as  it  seemed,  to  take  it  thence. 
Or  he  pities  his  long,  clammy,  attenuated  fingers.  He 
compassionates  himself  all  over  ;  and  his  bed  is  a  very 
discipline  of  humanity,  and  tender  heart. 

He  is  his  own  sympathizer  ;  and  instinctively  feels 
that  none  can  so  well  perform  that  office  for  him.  He 
cares  for  few  spectators  to  his  tragedy.  Only  that 
punctual  face  of  the  old  nurse  pleases  him,  that  an- 
nounces his  broths  and  his  cordials.  He  likes  it  because 
it  is  so  unmoved,  and  because  he  can  pour  forth  his 
feverish  ejaculations  before  it  as  unreservedly  as  to  his 
bedpost. 

To  the  world's  business  he  is  dead.     He  understands 
not  what  the  callings  and  occupations  of  mortals  are 
only  he  has  a  glimmering  conceit  of  some  such  thing, 


THE   CONVALESCENT.  309 

when  tlie  doctor  makes  his  daily  call  ;  and  even  in  the 
lines  on  that  busy  face  he  reads  no  multiplicity  of  pa- 
tients, but  solely  conceives  of  himself  as  tJie  sick  man. 
To  what  other  uneasy  couch  the  good  man  is  hasten- 
ing, when  he  slips  out  of  his  chamber,  folding  up  his 
thin  douceur  so  carefully,  for  fear  of  inistling  —  is  no 
Bpeculation  which  he  can  at  present  entertain.  He 
thinks  only  of  the  regular  return  of  the  same  phenom- 
enon at  the  same  hour  to-morrow. 

Household  rumors  touch  him  not.  Some  faint 
murmur,  indicative  of  life  going  on  within  the  house, 
St»othes  him,  while  he  knows  not  distinctly  what  it  is. 
He  is  not  to  know  anything,  not  to  think  of  anything. 
Servants  gliding  up  or  down  the  distant  staircase, 
treading  as  upon  velvet,  gently  keep  his  ear  awake, 
so  long  as  he  troubles  not  himself  further  than  with 
some  feeble  guess  at  their  errands.  Exacter  knowledge 
would  be  a  burden  to  him  ;  he  can  just  endure  the 
pressure  of  conjecture.  He  opens  his  eye  faintly  at 
the  dull  stroke  of  the  muffled  knocker,  and  closes  it 
again  without  askincr  "  Who  was  it  ?  "  He  is  flattered 
by  a  general  notion  that  inquiries  are  making  after 
him,  but  he  cares  not  to  know  the  name  of  the  in- 
quirer. In  the  general  stillness,  and  awfid  hush  of  the 
house,  he  lies  in  state,  and  feels  his  sovereignty. 

To  be  sick  is  to  enjoy  monarchial  prerogatives.  Com- 
pare the  silent  tread,  and  quiet  ministry,  almost  by  the 
eye  only,  with  which  he  is  served  —  with  the  cax'e- 
less  demeanor,  the  unceremonious  e-oings  in  and  out 
(slapping  of  doors,  or  leaving  them  open)  of  the  very 
Bame  attendants,  when  he  is  getting  a  little  better  — 
and  you  will  confess,  that  from  the  bed  of  sickness 
(throne  let  me  rather  call   it)  to   the  elbowchair  of 


310  THE    CONVALESCENT. 

convalescence,  is  a  fall  fi'om  dignity,  amounting  to  a 
deposition. 

How  convalescence  shrinks  a  man  back  to  liis  pris- 
tine stature !  where  is  now  the  space,  which  he  occu- 
pied so  lately,  in  his  own,  in  the  family's  eye  ? 

The  scene  of  his  regalities,  his  sick-room,  which  was 
his  presence  chamber,  where  he  lay  and  acted  his  des- 
potic fancies  —  how  is  it  reduced  to  a  common  bed- 
room !  The  trimness  of  the  very  bed  has  something 
petty  and  unmeaning  about  it.  It  is  made  every  day. 
How  unlike  to  that  wavy,  many-furrowed,  oceanic 
surface,  which  it  presented  so  short  a  time  since,  when 
to  make  it  was  a  service  not  to  be  thought  of  at  oftener 
than  three  or  four  day  revolutions,  when  the  patient 
was  with  pam  and  grief  to  be  lifted  for  a  little  while 
out  of  it,  to  submit  to  the  encroachments  of  unwelcome 
neatness,  and  decencies  which  his  shaken  frame  depre- 
cated ;  then  to  be  lifted  into  it  again,  for  another  three 
or  four  days'  respite,  to  flounder  it  out  of  shape  again, 
while  eveiy  fresh  ftirrow  was  an  historical  record  of 
some  shifting  posture,  some  uneasy  tmning,  some  seek- 
ino-  for  a  little  ease  ;  and  the  shrunken  skin  scarce  told 
a  truer  story  than  the  crumpled  coverlid. 

Hushed  are  those  mysterious  sighs  —  those  groans 
—  so  much  more  awful,  while  we  knew  not  from  what 
caverns  of  vast  hidden  suffering  they  proceeded.  The 
Leniean  pangs  are  quenched.  The  riddle  of  sickness 
is  solved ;  and  Philoctetes  is  become  an  ordinary  per 
sonage. 

Perhaps  some  relic  of  the  sick  man's  dream  of  great- 
ness survives  in  the  still  lingering  visitations  of  the 
medical  attendant.  But  how  is  he,  too,  changed  with 
everything  else !     Can  this  be  he  —  tliis  man  of  news 


THE   CONVALESCENT.  311 

—  -of  chat  —  of  anecdote  —  of  everything  but  physic,  — 
can  this  be  he,  who  so  lately  came  between  the  patient 
and  his  cruel  enemy,  as  on  some  solemn  embassy  from 
Nature,  erecting  herself  into  a  high  mediating  party  ? — 
Pshaw  !  'tis  some  old  woman. 

Farewell  with  him  all  that  made  sickness  pompous 

—  the  spell  that  hushed  the  household  —  the  desert- 
like  stillness,  felt  throughout  its  inmost  chambers  — 
the  mute  attendance  —  the  inquiry  by  looks  —  the  still 
softer  delicacies  of  self-attention  —  the  sole  and  single 
eye  of  distemper  alonely  fixed  upon  itself — world- 
thoughts  excluded  —  the  man  a  world  unto  liimself — 
his  own  theatre,  — 

What  a  speck  is  he  dwindled  into! 

In  this  flat  swamp  of  convalescence,  left  by  the  ebb 
of  sickness,  yet  far  enough  from  the  terra  firma  of 
estabhshed  health,  your  note,  dear  Editor,  reached 
me,  requesting  —  an  article.  In  Articulo  INIortis, 
thought  I ;  but  it  is  something  hard,  —  and  the  quibble, 
wretched  as  it  was,  relieved  me.  The  summons,  un- 
seasonable as  it  appeared,  seemed  to  link  me  on  again 
to  the  petty  businesses  of  life,  which  I  had  lost  sight 
of;  a  gentle  call  to  activity,  however  trivial ;  a  whole- 
some weaning  fi'ora  that  preposterous  dream  of  self- 
absorption  —  the  puffy  state  of  sickness  —  in  which  I 
confess  to  have  lain  so  long,  insensible  to  the  maca- 
zines  and  monarchies,  of  the  world  alike ;  to  its  laws, 
and  to  its  literature.  The  hypochondriac  flatus  is  sul>- 
siding;  the  acres,  which  in  imagination  I  had  spread 
over  —  for  the  sick  man  swells  in  the  sole  contempla- 
tion of  his  single  sufferings,  till  he  becomes  a  Tityus  to 
himself —  are  wasting  to  a  span  ;  and  for  the  giant  of 


812  SANITY   OF  TRUE   GENIUS. 

self-importance,  which  I  was  so  lately,  you  have  me 
once  again  in  my  natural  pretensions  —  the  lean  and 
meagre  figure  of  your  insignificant  Essayist. 


SANITY  OF  TRUE   GENIUS. 

So  far  from  the  position  holding  true,  that  great  wit 
(^or  genius,  in  our  modem  way  of  speaking)  has  a  ne- 
cessary alliance  with  insanity,  the  greatest  wits,  on  the 
contrary,  will  ever  be  found  to  be  the  sanest  writers. 
It  is  impossible  for  the  mind  to  conceive  of  a  mad  Shak- 
speare.  The  gi'eatness  of  wit,  by  which  the  poetic 
talent  is  here  chiefly  to  be  understood,  manifests  itself 
in  the  admirable  balance  of  all  the  faculties.  Madness 
is  the  disproportionate  straining  or  excess  of  any  one  of 
them.  "So  strong  a  wit,"  says  Cowley,  speaking  of  a 
poetical  friend, 

" did  Nature  to  him  frame, 

As  all  things  but  his  judgment  overcame; 

His  judgment  like  the  heavenly  moon  did  show, 

Tempering  that  mighty  sea  below." 

The  ground  of  the  mistake  is,  that  men,  finding  In 
the  raptures  of  the  higher  poetry  a  condition  of  exalta- 
tion, to  which  they  have  no  parallel  in  their  own  ex- 
perience, besides  the  spurious  resemblance  of  it  in 
dreams  and  fevers,  impute  a  state  of  dreaminess  and 
fever  to  the  poet.  But  the  true  poet  dreams  being 
awake.  He  h  not  possessed  by  his  subject,  but  has 
dominion   over  it.     In  the   o-roves  of  Eden  he   walks 


SANITY  OF  TRUE  GENIUS.  313 

familial  as  in  his  native  paths.  He  ascends  the  empy- 
rean heaven,  and  is  not  intoxicated.  He  treads  the 
burning  marl  without  dismay  ;  he  wings  his  flight  with- 
out self-loss  through  realms  of  chaos  "and  old  night." 
Or  if,  abandoning  himself  to  that  severer  chaos  of  a 
"human  mind  untuned,"  he  is  content  awhile  to  be 
mad  with  Lear,  or  to  hate  mankind  (a  sort  of  madness) 
Math  Timon ;  neither  is  that  madness,  nor  this  misan- 
thropy, so  unchecked,  but  that  —  never  letting  the 
reins  of  reason  wholly  go,  while  most  he  seems  to  do 
so  —  he  has  his  better  genius  still  whispering  at  his 
ear,  with  the  good  servant  Kent  suggesting  saner  coun- 
sels,  or  with  the  honest  steward  Flavins  recommending 
kindlier  resolutions.  Where  he  seems  most  to  recede 
from  humanity,  he  will  be  found  the  truest  to  it.  From 
beyond  the  scope  of  Nature,  if  he  summon  possible 
existences,  he  subjugates  them  to  the  law  of  her  con- 
sistency. He  is  beautifully  loyal  to  that  sovereign 
directress,  even  when  he  appears  most  to  betray  and 
desert  her.  His  ideal  tribes  submit  to  policy  ;  his  very 
monsters  are  tamed  to  his  hand,  even  as  that  wild  sea- 
brood,  shepherded  by  Proteus.  He  tames,  and  he 
clothes  them  with  attributes  of  flesh  and  blood,  till  they 
wonder  at  themselves,  like  Indian  Islanders  forced  to 
submit  to  European  vesture.  Caliban,  the  Witches, 
are  as  true  to  the  laws  of  their  own  nature  (ours  with 
a  difference)  as  Othello,  Hamlet,  and  Macbeth.  Here- 
in the  great  and  the  little  wits  are  differenced ;  that 
if  the  latter  wander  ever  so  little  from  nature  or  ac- 
tual existence,  they  lose  themselves,  and  their  readers. 
Their  phantoms  are  lawless  ;  their  visions  nightmares. 
They  do  not  create,  which  implies  shaping  and  consist- 
ency.    Their  imaginations  are  not  active,  —  for  lo  b** 


314  SANITY  OF  TRUE  GENIUS. 

active  is  to  call  something  into  act  and  form, — but  pas- 
sive, as  men  in  sick  dreams.  For  the  supernatural,  or 
something  superadded  to  what  we  know  of  nature, 
they  give  you  the  plainly  non-natural.  And  if  this 
were  all,  and  that  these  mental  hallucinations  were  dis- 
coverable only  in  the  treatment  of  subjects  out  of 
nature,  or  transcending  it,  the  judgment  might  with 
some  plea  be  pardoned  if  it  ran  riot,  and  a  little  wan- 
tonized ;  but  even  in  the  describing  of  real  and  every- 
day life,  that  which  is  before  their  eyes,  one  of  these 
lesser  wits  shall  more  deviate  fi'om  nature,  —  show  more 
of  that  inconsequence,  which  has  a  natural  alliance 
with  frenzy,  —  than  a  great  genius  in  his  "maddest  fits," 
as  Withers  somewhere  calls  them.  We  appeal  to  any 
one  that  is  acquainted  with  the  common  run  of  Lane's 
novels,  —  a§  they  existed  some  twenty  or  thirty  years 
back, — those  scanty  intellectiial  viands  of  the  whole  fe- 
male reading  public,  till  a  happier  genius  arose,  and  ex- 
pelled forever  the  innutritious  phantoms,  —  whether  he 
has  not  found  his  brain  more  "  betossed,"  his  memory 
more  puzzled,  his  sense  of  when  and  where  more  con 
founded,  among  the  improbable  events,  the  incoherent 
incidents,  the  inconsistent  characters,  or  no  characters, 
of  some  third-rate  love-intrigue,  —  wliere  the  persons 
shall  be  a  Lord  Glendamour  and  a  Miss  Rivers,  and  the 
scene  only  alternate  between  Bath  and  Bond  Street,  — 
a  more  bewildering  dreaminess  induced  upon  him,  than 
he  has  felt  wandering  over  all  the  fairy  grounds  of 
Spenser.  In  the  productions  we  refer  to,  nothing  but 
names  and  places  isfiimiliar;  the  persons  are  neither  of 
this  world  nor  of  any  other  conceivable  one ;  an  end- 
less string  of  activities  without  purpose,  of  purposes 
destitute  of  motive :  —  we  m(;et  phantoms  in  our  known 


SANITY  OF  TRUE  OENIUS.  315 

walks ;  fantasques  only  christened.  In  the  poet  we 
have  names  which  announce  fiction ;  and  we  have  ab- 
solutely no  place  at  all,  for  the  things  and  persons  of 
the  Fairy  Queen  prate  not  of  their  "  whereabout." 
But  in  their  inner  nature,  and  the  law  of  their  speech 
and  actions,  we  are  at  home  and  upon  acquainted 
ground.  The  one  turns  life  into  a  dream ;  the  other 
to  the  wildest  dreams  gives  the  sobrieties  of  every-day 
occurrences.  By  what  subtle  art  of  tracing  the  mental 
processes  it  is  effected,  we  are  not  philosophers  enough 
to  explain  ;  but  in  that  wonderful  episode  of  the  cave  of 
Mammon,  in  which  the  Money  God  appears  first  in  the 
lowest  form  of  a  miser,  is  then  a  worker  of  metals,  and 
becomes  the  god  of  all  the  treasures  of  the  world ;  and 
has  a  daughter.  Ambition,  before  whom  all  the  world 
kneels  for  favors,  —  with  the  Hesperian  fruit,  the  waters 
of  Tantalus,  with  Pilate  washing  his  hands  vainly,  but 
not  impertinently,  in  the  same  stream,  — that  Ave  should 
be  at  one  moment  in  the  cave  of  an  old  hoarder  of 
treasures,  at  the  next  at  the  forge  of  the  Cyclops,  in  a 
palace  and  yet  in  hell,  all  at  once,  with  the  shifting 
mutations  of  the  most  rambling  dream,  and  our  judg- 
ment yet  all  the  time  awake,  and  neither  able  nor  will- 
ing to  detect  the  fallacy,  —  is  a  proof  of  that  hidden 
sanity  which  still  guides  the  poet  in  the  wildest  seem- 
ing-aberrations. 

It  is  not  enough  to  say  that  the  whole  episode  is  a 
copy  of  the  mind's  conceptions  in  sleep ;  it  is,  in  some 
sort,  —  but  what  a  copy  !  Let  the  most  romantic  of  us, 
that  has  been  entertained  all  night  Avith  the  spectacle 
of  some  wild  and  magnificent  A'ision,  recombine  it  in 
the  morning,  and  try  it  by  his  Avaking  judgment. 
That  which  appeared  so  shifting,  and  yet  so  coherent, 


816'  CAPTAIN  JACKSON. 

while  that  faculty  was  passive,  when  it  comes  under 
cool  examination  shall  appear  so  reasonless  and  so 
unlinked,  that  we  are  ashamed  to  have  been  so  de- 
luded ;  and  to  have  taken,  though  but  in  sleep,  a 
monster  for  a  god.  But  the  transitions  in  this  episode 
are  every  whit  as  violent  as  in  the  most  extravagant 
dream,  and  yet  the  waking  judgment  ratifies  them. 


CAPTAIN  JACKSON. 

Among  the  deaths  in  our  obituary  for  this  month,  I 
observe  with  concern  "  At  his  cottage  on  the  Bath 
road.  Captain  Jackson."  The  name  and  attribution 
are  common  enough  ;  but  a  feeling  like  reproach  per- 
suades me,  that  this  could  have  been  no  other  in  fact 
than  my  dear  old  friend,  who  some  five-and-twenty 
years  ago  rented  a  tenement,  which  he  was  pleased  to 
dignify  with  the  appellation  here  used,  about  a  mile 
from  Westbourn  Green.  Alack,  how  good  men,  and 
the  good  turns  they  do  us,  slide  out  of  memory,  and  are 
recalled  but  by  the  surprise  of  some  such  sad  memento 
as  that  which  now  lies  before  us  I 

He  whom  I  mean  was  a  retired  half-pay  officer,  with 
a  wife  and  two  grown-up  daughters,  whom  he  main- 
tained with  the  port  and  notions  of  gentlewomen  upon 
that  slender  professional  allowance.  Comely  girls  they 
were  too. 

And  was  I  in  danger  of  forgetting  this  man  ?  —  his 
cheerftil  suppers  —  the  noble  tone  of  hospitality,  when 


CAPTAIN  JACKSON.  317 

first  you  set  your  foot  in  the  cottage^  —  the  anxious 
ministerings  about  you,  where  little  or  nothing  (God 
knows)  was  to  be  ministered.  Althea's  horn  in  a  poor 
platter,  —  the  power  of  self-enchantment,  by  which,  in 
his  magnificent  wishes  to  entertain  you,  he  multiplied 
his  means  to  bounties. 

You  saw  with  your  bodliy  eyes  indeed  what  seemed 
a  bare  scrag  —  cold  savings  from  the  foregone  meal  — 
remnant  hardly  sufficient  to  send  a  mendicant  ft'om  the 
door  contented.  But  in  the  copious  will  —  the  revel- 
ling imagination  of  your  host  —  the  '*  mind,  the  mind, 
Master  Shallow,"  whole  beeves  were  spread  before  you 
—  hecatombs  —  no  end  appeared  to  the  profiision. 

It  was  the  widow's  cruse  —  the  loaves  and  fishes  j 
carving  could  not  lessen,  nor  helping  diminish  it  —  the 
stamina  were  left  —  the  elemental  bone  still  flourished, 
divested  of  its  accidents. 

"  Let  us  live  while  we  can,"  methinks  I  hear  the 
open-handed  creature  exclaim  ;  "  while  we  have,  let  us 
not  want,"  "  here  is  plenty  left ; "  "  want  for  nothing," 
—  with  many  more  such  hospitable  sayings,  the  spurs 
of  appetite,  and  old  concomitants  of  smoking  boards, 
and  feast-oppressed  chargers.  Then  slicHng  a  slender 
ratio  of  Single  Gloucester  upon  his  wife's  plate,  or  the 
daughters',  he  would  convey  the  remanent  rind  into 
his  own,  with  a  merry  quirk  of  "  the  nearer  the  bone," 
&c.,  and  declaiing  that  he  universally  preferred  the 
outside.  For  we  had  our  table  distinctions,  you  are  to 
know,  and  some  of  vis  in  a  manner  eat  above  the  salt. 
None  but  his  guest  or  guests  dreamed  of  tasting  flesh 
luxuries  at  night,  the  fragments  were  vere  hospitibus 
sacra.  But  of  one  thing  or  another  there  was  always 
enough,  and  leavings ;  only  he  would  sometimes  finish 


318  CAPTAIN  JACKSON. 

tlie  remainder  crust,  to  show  that  he  wisheil  no  sav- 
ings. 

Wine  we  had  none  ;  nor,  except  on  very  rare  oc- 
casions, spirits ;  but  the  sensation  of  wine  was  there.  • 
Some  thin  kind  of  ale  I  remember,  — "  British  bev- 
erage," he  would  say  !  "  Push  about,  my  boys  ;  " 
"  Drink  to  your  sweethearts,  girls."  At  every  meagre 
draught  a  toast  must  ensue,  or  a  song.  All  the  forms 
of  good  liquor  were  there,  with  none  of  the  effects 
wanting.  Shut  your  eyes,  and  you  would  swear  a 
capacious  bowl  of  punch  was  foaming  in  the  centre, 
with  beams  of  generous  Port  or  Madeira  radiating  to 
it  fi'om  each  of  the  table-corners.  You  got  flustered, 
without  knowing  whence ;  tipsy  upon  words ;  and 
reeled  under  the  potency  of  his  unperforming  Baccha- 
nalian encourao-ments. 

We  had  our  songs,  —  "  Why,  Soldiers,  why,"  —  and 
the  "  British  Grenadiers,"  — in  which  last  we  were  all 
obliged  to  bear  chorus.  Both  the  dauo;hters  sang;. 
Their  proficiency  was  a  nightly  theme,  — the  masters  he 
had  given  them,  —  the  "  no-expense  "  which  he  spared 
to  accomplish  them  in  a  science  "  so  necessaiy  to 
young  women."  But  then  —  they  could  not  sing 
"  without  the  instrument." 

Sacred,  and,  by  me,  never-to-be-violated,  secrets  of 
Poverty !  Should  I  disclose  your  honest  aims  at 
grandeur,  your  makeshift  efforts  of  magnificence  ? 
Sleep,  sleep,  with  all  thy  broken  keys,  if  one  of  the 
bunch  be  extant;  thrummed  by  a  thousand  ancestral 
thumbs ;  dear,  cracked  spinnet  of  dearer  Louisa ! 
VVithout  mention  of  mine,  be  dumb,  thou  thin  ac- 
companler  of  her  thinner  warble  !  A  veil  be  spread 
over  the  dear  delighted  face  of  the  well-deluded  father, 


CAPTAIN  JACKSON.  319 

who  now,  haply  listening  to  cherubic  notes,  scarce  feels 
sincerer  pleasure  than  when  she  awakened  thy  time- 
shaken  chords  responsive  to  the  twitterings  of  that 
slender  image  of  a  voice. 

We  were  not  without  our  literary  talk  either.  It 
did  not  extend  far,  but  as  far  as  it  went,  it  was  good. 
It  was  bottomed  well  ;  had  good  grounds  to  go  upon. 
In  the  cottage  was  a  room,  which  tradition  authenti- 
cated to  have  been  the  same  in  which  Glover,  in  his 
occasional  retirements,  had  penned  the  greater  part  of 
his  Leonidas.  This  circumstance  was  nightly  quoted, 
though  none  of  the  present  inmates,  that  I  could  dis- 
cover, appeared  ever  to  have  met  with  the  poem  in 
question.  But  that  was  no  matter.  Glover  had 
written  there,  and  the  anecdote  was  pressed  into  the 
account  of  the  family  importance.  It  diffused  a  learned 
air  through  the  apartment,  the  little  side  casement  of 
which,  (the  poet's  study  window,)  opening  upon  a 
superb  view  as  far  as  the  pretty  spire  of  Harrow,  over 
domains  and  patrimonial  acres,  not  a  rood  nor  square 
yard  whereof  our  host  could  call  his  own,  yet  gaA^e  oc- 
casion to  an  immoderate  expansion  of —  vanity  shall  I 
call  it  ?  —  in  his  bosom,  as  he  showed  them  in  a  glow- 
ing summer  evening.  It  was  all  his,  he  took  it  all  in, 
and  communicated  rich  portions  of  it  to  his  guests.  It 
was  a  part  of  his  largess,  liis  hospitality  ;  it  was  going 
over  his  grounds ;  he  was  lord  for  the  time  of  showing 
them,  and  you  the  implicit  lookers-up  to  his  magnifi- 
cence. 

He  was  a  juggler,  who  threw  mists  before  your 
eyes  —  you  had  no  time  to  detect  his  fallacies.  He 
would  say,  "  Hand  me  the  silver  sugar  tongs  ;  "  and 
before  you  could  discover  it  was  a  single  spoon,  and 


320  CAPTAIN  JACKSON. 

thsLt  plated,  he  would  disturb  and  captivate  your  nnagi- 
nation  by  a  misnomer  of  "  the  urn  "  for  a  tea-kettle ; 
or  by  calling  a  homely  bench  a  sofa.  Rich  men  direct 
you  to  their  fiirniture,  poor  ones  divert  you  from  it ;  he 
neither  did  one  nor  the  other,  but  by  simply  assuming 
that  everything  v^^as  handsome  about  him,  you  were 
positively  at  a  demur  what  you  did,  or  did  not  see,  at 
the  cottage.  With  nothing  to  live  on,  he  seemed  to  live 
on  evei'y thing.  He  had  af  stock  of  wealth  in  his  mind; 
not  that  which  is  properly  termed  Content,  for  in  truth 
he  was  not  to  be  contained  at  all,  but  overflowed  all 
bounds  by  the  force  of  a  magnificent  self-delusion. 

Enthusiasm  is  catching  ;  and  even  his  wife,  a  sober 
native  of  North  Britain,  who  generally  saw  things  more 
as  they  were,  was  not  proof  against  the  continual  col- 
hsion  of  his  credulity.  Pier  daughters  were  rational 
and  discreet  young  women  ;  in  the  main,  perhaps,  not 
insensible  to  their  true  circumstances.  I  have  seen 
them  assume  a  thouo;htful  air  at  times.  But  such  was 
the  preponderating  opulence  of  his  fancy,  that  I  am 
persuaded,  not  for  any  half  hour  together  did  they  ever 
look  their  own  prospects  fairly  in  the  face.  There  was 
no  resisting  the  vortex  of  his  temperament.  His  riotous 
imagination  conjured  up  handsome  settlements  before 
their  eyes,  which  kept  them  up  in  the  eye  of  the  world 
too,  and  seem  at  last  to  have  realized  themselves ;  for 
they  both  have  married  smce,  1  am  told,  more  than 
respectably. 

It  is  long  since,  and  my  memory  waxes  dim  on  some 
subjects,  or  I  should  wish  to  convey  some  notion  of  the 
manner  in  which  the  pleasant  creature  described  the 
circumstances  of  his  own  wedding-day.  I  faintly  re- 
member something  of  a  chaise-and-four,  in  which  he 


CAPTAIN  JACKSON.  321 

made  his  entry  into  Glasgow  on  that  morning  to  fetch 
the  briie  home,  or  carry  her  thither,  I  forget  which. 
It  so  completely  made  out  the  stanza  of  the  old 
ballad  — 

When  we  came  down  through  Glasgow  town. 

We  were  a  comely  sight  to  see; 
My  love  was  clad  in  black  velvet, 

And  I  myself  in  cramasie. 

I  suppose  it  was  the  only  occasion  upon  which  his 
own  actual  splendor  at  all  corresponded  with  the 
world's  notions  on  that  subject.  In  homely  cart, 
or  travelling  caravan,  by  whatever  humble  vehicle 
they  chanced  to  be  transported  in  less  prosperous 
days,  the  ride  through  Glasgow  came  back  upon  his 
fancy,  not  as  a  humiliating  contrast,  but  as  a  fair 
occasion  for  reverting  to  that  one  day's  state.  It 
seemed  an  "  equipage  etern  "  from  which  no  power 
of  fate  or  fortune,  once  momited,  had  power  there- 
after to  dislodge  him. 

There  is  some  merit  in  putting  a  handsome  face 
upon  Indigent  circumstances.  To  bully  and  swagger 
away  the  sense  of  them  befoi-e  strangers,  may  not  be 
always  discommendable.  Tibbs,  and  Bobadil,  even 
when  detected,  have  more  of  our  admiration  than 
contempt.  But  for  a  man  to  put  the  cheat  upon 
himself;  to  play  the  Bobadil  at  home  ;  and,  steeped 
in  poverty  up  to  the  lips,  to  fancy  himself  all  the 
while  chin-deep  in  riches,  is  a  strain  of  constitutional 
philosophy,  and  a  mastery  over  fortune,  which  was 
reserved  for  my  old  friend  Captain  Jackson. 


21 


322  THE  SUPERANNUATED  MAN 


THE   SUPERANNUATED  MAN 

Sera  tamea  respexit 
Libertas.  Virgil. 

A  Clerk  I  was  in  London  gay. 

O'Keefe. 

If  peradventure,  Reader,  it  has  been  tliy  lot  to  svaste 
the  golden  years  of  thy  life — thy  shining  youth  —  in 
the  irksome  confinement  of  an  office  ;  to  have  thy 
prison-days  prolonged  through  middle  age  down  to 
decrepitude  and  silver  hairs,  without  hope  of  release  or 
respite ;  to  have  lived  to  forget  that  there  are  such 
things  as  holidays,  or  to  remember  them  but  as  the 
prerogatives  of  childhood ;  then,  and  then  only,  will 
you  be  able  to  appreciate  my  deliverance. 

It  is  now  six-and-thirty  years  since  I  took  my  seat  at 
the  desk  in  Mincing  Lane.  Melancholy  was  the  transi- 
tion at  fom'teen  fi-om  the  abundant  playtime,  and  the 
frequently  intervening  vacations  of  school  days,  to  the 
eight,  nine,  and  sometimes  ten  hours'  a-day  attendance 
at  the  counting-house.  But  time  partially  reconciles  us 
to  anything.  I  gradually  became  content  —  doggedly 
contented,  as  wild  animals  in  cages. 

It  is  true  I  had  my  Sundays  to  myself;  but  Sun- 
days, admirable  as  the  institution  of  them  is  for  pur- 
poses of  worship,  are  for  that  very  reason  the  very 
worst  adapted  for  days  of  unbending  and  recreation. 
In  particular,  tliere  is  a  gloom  for  me  attendant  upon 
a  city  Sunday,  a  weight  in  the  air.  I  miss  the  cheer- 
ful cries  of  London,  the  music,  and  the  ballad-singers, 
—  the  buzz  and  stirriuii  murmur  of  the  streets.     Those 


THE   SUPERANNUATED   MAN.  323 

eturiial  bells  depress  me.  The  closed  shops  repel  me. 
Prints,  pictures,  all  the  glittering  and  endless  succession 
of  knacks  and  gewgaws,  and  ostentatiously  displayed 
wares  of  tradesmen,  which  make  a  weekday  saunter 
through  the  less  busy  parts  of  the  metropolis  so  delight- 
ful —  are  shut  out.  No  book-stalls  deliciously  to  idle 
over  —  No  busy  faces  to  recreate  the  idle  ma\i  who 
contemplates  them  ever  passing  by  —  the  very  face  of 
business  a  charm  by  contrast  to  his  temporary  relaxa- 
tion from  it.  Nothing  to  be  seen  but  unhappy  coun- 
tenances —  or  half-happy  at  best  —  of  emancipated 
'prentices  and  little  tradesfolks,  with  here  and  there  a 
servant-maid  that  has  got  leave  to  go  out,  who,  slaving 
all  the  week,  with  the  habit  has  lost  almost  the  capacity 
of  enjoying  a  free  hour ;  and  livelily  ex})ressing  the 
hollowness  of  a  day's  pleasuring.  Tlie  very  strollers  in 
the  fields  on  that  day  look  anything  but  comfortable. 

But  besides  Sundays  I  had  a  day  at  Easter,  and  a 
day  at  Christmas,  with  a  fiill  week  in  the  summer  to  go 
and  air  myself  in  my  native  fields  of  Hertfordsliire. 
This  last  was  a  great  indulgence  ;  and  the  prospect  of 
its  recurrence,  I  believe,  alone  kept  me  up  through  the 
year,  and  made  my  durance  tolerable.  But  when  the 
week  came  round,  did  the  glittering  phantom  of  the 
distance  keep  touch  Avith  me  ?  or  rather  was  it  not  a 
series  of  seven  uneasy  days,  spent  in  restless  pursuit 
of  pleasure,  and  a  wearisome  anxiety  to  find  out  how 
to  make  the  most  of  them  ?  Where  was  the  quiet, 
where  the  promised  rest  ?  Before  I  had  a  taste  of  it, 
it  was  vanished.  I  Avas  at  the  desk  again,  counting 
upon  the  fifty-one  tedious  weeks  that  must  intervene 
before  such  another  snatch  would  come.  Still  the 
prospect  of  its  coming  threw  sometliing  of  an  illumi- 


324  THE   SUPERANNUATED   MAN. 

nation  upon  the  darker  side  of  my  captivity.  Without 
it,  as  I  have  said,  I  could  scarcely  have  sustained  my 
thraldom. 

Independently  of  the  rigors  of  attendance,  I  have 
ever  been  haunted  with  a  sense  (perhaps  a  mere  ca- 
price) of  incapacity  for  business.  This,  during  my 
latter  years,  had  increased  to  such  a  degree,  that  it  was 
visible  in  all  the  lines  of  my  countenance.  My  health 
and  my  good  spirits  flagged.  I  had  perpetually  a 
dread  of  some  crisis,  to  which  I  should  be  found  un- 
equal. Besides  my  daylight  servitude,  I  served  over 
again  all  night  in  my  sleep,  and  would  awake  with 
terrors  cf  imaginary  false  entries,  errors  in  my  ac- 
counts, and  the  like.  I  was  lifty  years  of  age,  and 
no  prospect  of  emancipation  presented  itself.  I  had 
grown  to  my  desk,  as  it  were ;  and  the  wood  had  en- 
tered into  my  soul. 

My  fellows  in  the  office  would  sometimes  rally  me 
upon  the  trouble  legible  in  my  countenance ;  but  I 
did  not  know  that  it  had  raised  the  suspicions  of  any 
of  my  employers,  when,  on  the  fifth  of  last  month,  a 

day  ever  to  be  remembered  by  me,  L ,  the  junior 

partner  in  the  firm,  calling  me  on  one  side,  directly 
taxed  me  with  my  bad  looks,  and  frankly  inquired  the 
cause  of  them.  So  taxed,  I  honestly  made  confession 
of  my  infirmity,  and  added  that  I  was  afraid  I  should 
eventually  be  obliged  to  resign  his  service.  He  spoke 
some  words  of  course  to  hearten  me,  and  there  the 
matter  rested.  A  whole  week  I  remained  laboring 
under  the  impression  that  I  had  acted  imprudently  in 
my  disclosure  ;  that  I  had  foolishly  given  a  handle 
against  myself,  and  had  been  anticipating  my  own 
dismissal.     A  week  passed  in  this  manner,  the  most 


THE   SUPERANNUATED   MAN.  325 

anxious  one,  I  verily  believe,  in  my  whole  life,  when, 
on  the  evening  of  the  12th  of  April,  just  as  I  was 
about  quitting  my  desk  to  go  home,  (it  might  be  about 
eight  o'clock,)  I  received  an  awful  summons  to  attend 
the  presence  of  the  whole  assembled  firm  in  the  formi- 
dable back  parlor.  I  thought  now  my  time  is  surely 
come,  I  have  done  for  myself,  I  am  going  to  be  told 

that  they  have  no  longer  occasion  for  me.     L ,  I 

could  see,  smiled  at  the  terror  I  was  in,  which  Avas  a 
little  relief  to  me,  —  when  to  my  utter  astonishment 

B ,  the  eldest  partner,  began  a  formal  harangue  to 

me  on  the  length  of  my  services,  my  very  meritorious 
conduct  during  the  whole  of  the  time,  (the  dense, 
thought  I,  how  did  he  find  out  that  ?  I  protest  I  never 
had  the  confidence  to  think  as  much).  He  went  on  to 
descant  on  the  expediency  of  retiring  at  a  certain  time 
of  life,  (how  my  heart  panted !)  and  asking  me  a  few 
questions  as  to  the  amount  of  my  own  property,  of 
which  I  have  a  little,  ended  with  a  proposal,  to  which 
his  three  partners  nodded  a  grave  assent,  that  I  should 
accept  from  the  house,  which  I  had  served  so  well,  a 
pension  for  life  to  the  amount  of  two  thirds  of  my 
accustomed  salary  —  a  magnificent  offer  !  I  do  not 
know  what  I  answered  between  surprise  and  gratitude, 
but  it  was  understood  that  I  accepted  their  proposal, 
and  I  was  told  that  I  was  fi'ee  from  that  hour  to  leave 
their  service.  I  stammered  out  a  bow,  and  at  just  ten 
minutes  after  eight  I  went  home  —  forever.  This 
noble  benefit  —  gratitude  forbids  me  to  conceal  their 
names  —  I  owe  to  the  kindness  of  the  most  munificent 
firm  in  the  world  —  the  house  of  Boldero,  Merry- 
weather,  Bosanquet,  and  Lacy. 

Eiltjoptrpttua! 


326  THE    SUPERANNUATED    MAN. 

For  the  first  day  or  two  I  felt  stunned,  overwhelmed. 
I  could  only  apprehend  my  felicity ;  I  was  too  con- 
fused to  taste  it  sincerely.  I  wandered  about,  thinking 
I  was  happy,  and  knowing  that  I  was  not.  I  was 
in  the  condition  of  a  prisoner  in  the  old  Bastile,  sud- 
denly let  loose  after  a  forty  years'  confinement.  I 
could  scarce  trust  myself  with  myself.  It  was  like 
passing  out  of  Time  into  Eternity,  —  for  it  is  a  sort  of 
Eternity  for  a  man  to  have  his  Time  all  to  himself.  It 
seemed  to  me  that  I  had  more  time  on  my  hands  than 
I  could  ever  manage.  From  a  poor  man,  poor  in 
Time,  I  was  suddenly  lifted  up  into  a  vast  revenue  ;  1 
could  see  no  end  of  my  possessions ;  I  wanted  some 
steward,  or  judicious  bailiff,  to  manage  my  estates  in 
Time  for  me.  And  here  let  me  caution  persons  grown 
old  in  active  business,  not  lightly,  nor  without  weigh- 
ing their  own  resources,  to  forego  their  customay  em- 
ployment all  at  once,  for  there  may  be  danger  in  it.  I 
feel  it  by  myself,  but  I  know  that  my  resources  are  suf- 
ficient ;  and  now  that  those  first  giddy  raptures  have 
subsided,  I  have  a  quiet  home-feeling  of  the  blessedness 
of  my  condition.  I  am  in  no  hurry.  Having  all  holi- 
days, I  am  as  though  I  had  none.  If  Time  hung 
heavy  upon  me,  I  could  walk  it  away  ;  but  I  do  not 
walk  all  day  long,  as  I  used  to  do  in  those  old  transient 
holidays,  thirty  miles  a  day,  to  make  the  most  of  them. 
If  Time  were  troublesome,  I  could  read  it  away  ;  but  I 
do  not  read  in  that  violent  measure,  with  which,  having 
no  Time  my  own  but  candlelight  Time,  I  used  to 
weary  out  my  head  and  eyesight  in  bygone  winters. 
I  walk,  read,  or  scribble  (as  now)  just  when  the  fit 
seizes  me.  I  no  longer  hunt  after  pleasure ;  I  let  it 
come  to  me.     I  am  like  the  man 


THE   SUPERANNUATED   MAN.  327 

that's  born,  and  has  his  years  come  to  him, 
la  some  gi-een  desert. 

"Years!"  you  will  say;  "what  is  this  superannu- 
ated simpleton  calculating  upon  ?  He  has  already  told 
us  lie  is  past  fifty." 

I  have  indeed  lived  nominally  fifty  years,  but  deduct 
out  of  them  the  hours  which  I  have  lived  to  other  peo- 
ple, and  not  to  myself,  and  you  will  find  me  still  a 
young  fellow.  For  that  is  the  only  true  Time  which 
a  man  can  properly  call  his  own,  that  which  he  has  all 
to  himself;  the  rest,  though  in  some  sense  he  may  be 
said  to  live  it,  is  other  people's  Time,  not  his.  The 
remnant  of  my  poor  days,  long  or  short,  is  at  least 
multiplied  for  me  threefold.  My  ten  next  years,  if  I 
stretch  so  far,  will  be  as  long  as  any  preceding  thirty. 
'Tis  a  fair  rule-of-three  sum. 

Among  the  strange  fantasies  which  beset  me  at  the 
commencement  of  my  fi-eedom,  and  of  which  all  traces 
are  not  yet  gone,  one  was,  that  a  vast  tract  of  time  had 
intervened  since  I  quitted  the  Counting-House.  I 
could  not  conceive  of  it  as  an  affair  of  yesterday.  The 
partners,  and  the  clerks  with  whom  I  had  for  so  many 
years,  and  for  so  many  hours  in  each  day  of  the  year, 
been  closely  associated,  — being  suddenly  removed  fi-om 
them,  —  they  seemed  as  dead  to  me.  There  is  a  fine 
passage,  which  may  serve  to  illustrate  this  fancy,  in  a 
Tragedy  by  Sir  Robert  Howard,  speaking  of  a  fi'iend's 
death. 

'Twas  but  just  now  he  went  away; 
I  have  not  since  had  time  to  shed  a  tear; 
And  yet  the  distance  docs  the  same  appear 
As  if  he  liad  been  a  thousand  years  from  me. 
Time  takes  no  measure  in  Eternity. 

To  dissipate  this  awkward  feeling,  I  have  been  fain 


328  THE  SUPERANNUATED   MAN. 

to  go  among  them  once  or  twice  since ;  to  visit  my  old 
desk-fellows,  —  my  co-brethren  of  the  quill,  —  that  I 
had  left  below  in  the  state  militant.  Not  all  the  kind- 
ness with  which  they  received  me  could  quite  restore 
to  me  that  pleasant  familiarity,  which  I  had  heretofore 
enjoyed  among  them.  We  cracked  some  of  our  old 
jokes,  but  methought  they  went  off  but  faintly.  My 
old  desk ;  the  peg  where  I  hung  my  hat  were  appro- 
priated to  another.     I  knew  it  must  be,  but  I  could 

not  take  it  kindly.     D 1  take  me,  if  I  did  not  feel 

some  remorse  —  beast,  if  I  had  not  —  at  quitting  my 
old  compeers,  the  faithful  partners  of  my  toils  for  six- 
and-thirty  years,  that  smoothed  for  me  with  their  jokea 
and  conundrums  the  ruggedness  of  my  professional 
road.  Had  it  been  so  rugged  then,  after  all  ?  or  was  1 
a  coward  simply  ?  Well,  it  is  too  late  to  repent ;  and 
I  also  know  that  these  suggestions  are  a  common  fal- 
lacy of  the  mind  on  such  occasions.  But  my  heart 
smote  me.  I  had  violently  broken  the  bands  betwixt 
us.  It  was  at  least  not  courteous.  I  shall  be  some 
time  before  I  get  quite  reconciled  to  the  separation. 
Farewell,  old  cronies,  yet  not  for  long,  for  again  and 
again  I   will    come  among   ye,   if  I   shall  have  your 

leave.    Farewell,  Ch ,  diy,  sarcastic,  and  friendly  ! 

Do ,  mild,  slow  to  move,  and  gentlemanly !  PI , 

officious  to  do,  and  to  volunteer,  good  services  !  —  and 
thou,  thou  dreary  pile,  fit  mansion  for  a  Gresham  or  a 
Whittington  of  old,  stately  house  of  Merchants  ;  with 
thy  labyrinthine  passages,  and  light-excluding,  pent-up 
offices,  where  candles  for  one  half  the  year  supplied  the 
place  of  the  sun's  light;  unhealthy  contributoi  to  my 
weal,  stern  fosterer  of  my  living,  farewell !  In  thee 
remain,  and   not   in    the   obscure   collection  of  some 


THE   SUPERANNUATED   MAN.  329 

wandering  bookseller,  my  "  works !  "  There  let  liiem 
rest,  as  I  do  from  my  labors,  piled  on  tli}'  massy 
shelves,  more  MSS.  in  folio  than  ever  Aquinas  left, 
and  full  as  useful !    My  mantle  I  bequeathe  among 

ye. 

A  fortnight  has  passed  since  the  date  of  my  first 
communication.  At  that  period  I  was  approaching  to 
tranquillity,  but  had  not  reached  it.  I  boasted  of  a 
calm  indeed,  but  it  was  comparative  only.  Something 
of  the  first  flutter  was  left ;  an  unsettling  sense  of 
novelty  ;  the  dazzle  to  weak  eyes  of  unaccustomed 
light.  I  missed  my  old  chains,  forsooth,  as  if  they 
had  been  some  necessary  part  of  my  apparel.  I  was 
a  poor  Carthusian,  from  strict  cellular  discipline  sud- 
denly by  some  revolution  returned  upon  the  world. 
I  am  now  as  if  I  had  never  been  other  than  my  own 
master.  It  is  natural  to  me  to  go  where  I  please,  to 
do  what  I  please.  I  find  myself  at  eleven  o'clock  in 
the  day  in  Bond  Street,  and  it  seems  to  me  that  I  have 
been  sauntering  there  at  that  very  hour  for  years  ])ast. 
I  digress  into  Soho,  to  explore  a  bookstall.  Methinks 
I  have  been  thirty  years  a  collector.  There  is  nothing 
strange  nor  new  in  it.  I  find  myself  before  a  fine  pic- 
ture in  the  morning.  Was  it  ever  otherwise  ?  What 
is  become  of  Fish  Street  Hill  ?  Where  is  Fenchurch 
Street?  Stones  of  old  Mincing  Lane,  which  I  have 
worn  with  my  daily  pilgrimage  for  six-and-thirty 
years,  to  the  footsteps  of  what  toil-worn  clerk  are 
your  everlasting  flints  now  vocal  ?  I  indent  the  gayer 
flags  of  Pall  Mall.  It  is  'Change  time,  and  I  am 
strangely  among  the  Elgin  marbles.  It  was  no  hy- 
perbole when  I  ventured  to  compare  the  change  in 
oiy  condition  to  a  passing  into  another  world.     Time 


330  THE   SUPERANNUATED   MAN. 

stands  still  in  a  manner  to  me.  I  have  jlost  all  (iis« 
tinction  of  season.  I  do  not  know  the  day  of  the  week 
or  of  the  month.  Each  day  used  to  be  individually  felt 
by  me  in  its  reference  to  the  foreign  postdays  ;  in  its 
distance  from,  or  propinquity  to,  the  next  Sunday.  I 
had  my  Wednesday  feelings,  my  Saturday  nights' 
sensations.  The  genius  of  each  day  was  upon  me  dis- 
tinctly during  the  whole  of  it,  affecting  my  appetite, 
spirits,  &c.  The  phantom  of  the  next  day,  with  the 
dreary  five  to  follow,  sat  as  a  load  upon  my  poor  Sab- 
bath recreations.  What  charm  has  washed  that  Ethiop 
white  ?  What  is  gone  of  Black  Monday  ?  All  days 
are  the  same.  Sunday  itself,  —  that  unfortunate  failure 
of  a  holiday,  as  it  too  often  proved,  what  with  my  sense 
of  its  fugitiveness,  and  overcare  to  get  the  greatest 
quantity  of  pleasure  out  of  it,  —  is  melted  down  into 
a  weekday.  I  can  spare  to  go  to  church  now,  without 
grudging  the  huge  cantle  which  it  used  to  seem  to  cut 
out  of  the  holiday.  I  have  Time  for  everything.  I 
can  visit  a  sick  friend.  I  can  interrupt  the  man  of 
much  occupation  when  he  is  busiest.  I  can  insult  over 
him  with  an  invitation  to  take  a  day's  pleasure  with  me 
to  Windsor  this  fine  May  morning.  It  is  Lucretian 
pleasure  to  behold  the  poor  drudges,  whom  I  have  left 
behind  in  the  world,  carking  and  caring ;  like  horses  in 
a  mill,  drudging  on  in  the  same  eternal  round  —  and 
what  is  it  all  for  ?  A  man  can  never  have  too  much 
Time  to  himself,  nor  too  little  to  do.  Had  I  a  little 
son,  I  would  christen  him  Nothing-to-do  ;  he  should 
do  nothing.  Man,  I  verily  believe,  is  out  of  his  ele- 
ment as  long  as  he  is  operative.  I  am  altogether  for 
the  life  contemplative.  Will  no  kindly  earthquake 
come  and  swallow  up   those   accm'sed   cotton   mills  ? 


THE   GENTEEL   STYLE  IN    WRITING.  331 

Puke  me  that  lumber  of  a  desk  there,  and  bowl  it 
down 

As  low  as  to  the  fiends. 

I  am  no  longer ,  clerk  to  the  Firm  of,  &c. 

I  am  Retired  Leisure.  I  am  to  be  met  with  in  trim 
gardens.  I  am  already  come  to  be  known  by  my 
vacant  face  and  careless  gesture,  perambulating  at  no 
fixed  pace,  nor  with  any  settled  purpose.  I  walk 
about ;  not  to  and  fi-om.  They  tell  me,  a  certain  eum 
dignitate  air,  that  has  been  buried  so  long  with  my 
other  good  parts,  has  begun  to  shoot  forth  in  my  per- 
son. I  grow  into  gentility  perceptibly.  When  I  take 
up  a  newspaper,  it  is  to  read  the  state  of  the  opera. 
Opus  operatum  est.  I  have  done  all  that  I  came  into 
this  world  to  do.  I  have  worked  taskwork,  and  have 
the  rest  of  the  day  to  myself. 


THE   GENTEEL   STYLE  IN   WRITING. 

It  is  an  ordinary  criticism,  that  my  Lord  Shaftes- 
bury, and  Sir  William  Temple,  are  models  of  the 
genteel  style  in  writing.  We  should  prefer  saying  — 
of  the  lordly,  and  the  gentlemanly.  Nothing  can  be 
more  unlike,  than  the  inflated  finical  rhapsodies  of 
Shaftesbury  and  the  plain  natural  chitchat  of  Temple. 
The  man  of  rank  is  discernible  in  both  writers ;  but  in 
the  one  it  is  only  insinuated  gracefully,  in  the  other  it 
stands  out  offensively.  The  peer  seems  to  have  written 
with  his  coronet  on,  and  his  Earl's  mantle  before  him ; 
^he  commoner  in  his  elbow  chair  and  undi'ess.     What 


332  THE  GENTEEL  STYLE  IN   WRITING. 

can  be  more  pleasant  than  the  way  in  which  tlie  retired 
statesman  peeps  out  in  his  essays,  penned  b}'  the  latter 
in  his  delightful  retreat  at  Shene  ?  They  scent  of 
Nimeguen,  and  the  Hague.  Scarce  an  authority  is 
quoted  under  an  ambassador.  Don  Francisco  de  Melo, 
a  "  Portugal  Envoy  m  England,"  tells  him  it  was  fre- 
quent in  his  country  for  men,  spent  with  age  and  other 
decays,  so  as  they  could  not  hope  for  above  a  year  or 
two  of  life,  to  ship  themselves  away  in  a  Brazil  fleet, 
and  after  theu'  arrival  there  to  go  on  a  great  length, 
sometimes  of  twenty  or  thirty  years,  or  more,  by  the 
force  of  that  vigor  they  recovered  with  that  remove. 
"  Wliether  such  an  effect  (Temple  beautifully  adds) 
might  grow  from  the  air,  or  the  fruits  of  that  climate,  or 
by  approaching  nearer  the  sun,  which  is  the  fountain  of 
light  and  heat,  when  their  natural  heat  was  so  far  de- 
cayed ;  or  whether  the  piecing  out  of  an  old  man's  life 
were  worth  the  pains ;  I  cannot  tell :  perhaps  the 
play  is  not  worth  the  candle."  Monsieur  Pompone, 
"  French  Ambassador  in  his  (Sir  William's)  time  at 
the  Hague,"  certifies  him,  that  in  his  life  he  had  never 
heard  of  any  man  in  France  that  arrived  at  a  hundred 
years  of  age  ;  a  limitation  of  life  which  the  old  gentle- 
man imputes  to  the  excellence  of  their  climate,  giving 
them  such  a  liveliness  of  temper  and  humor,  as  disposes 
them  to  more  pleasures  of  all  kinds  than  in  other  coun- 
tries ;  and  moralizes  upon  the  matter  very  sensibly. 
The  "  late  Robert,  Earl  of  Leicester,"  furnishes  him 
with  a  story  of  a  Countess  of  Desmond,  married  out  of 
England  in  Edward  the  Fourth's  time,  and  who  lived 
far  in  King  James's  reign.  The  "  same  noble  person  " 
gives  him  an  account,  how  such  a  year,  in  the  same 
reign,  there  went  about  the  country  a  set  of  morris- 
dancers,  composed  of  ten  men  who  danced,  a  Maid- 


THE   GENTEEL  STYLE  IN   WKITING.  333 

marian,  and  a  tabor  and  pipe  ;  and  how  these  twelve, 
one  with  another,  made  up  twelve  hundred  years.  "  It 
was  not  so  much  (says  Temple)  that  so  many  in  one 
small  county  (Hertfordshire)  should  live  to  that  age,  as 
that  they  should  be  in  vigor  and  in  humor  to  travel 
and  to  dance."  Monsieur  Zulichem,  one  of  his  "  col- 
leagues at  the  Hague,"  informs  him  of  a  cure  for  the 
gout ;  which  is  confirmed  by  another  "  Envoy,"  Mon- 
sieur Serinchamps,  in  that  town,  who  had  tried  it. 
Old  Prince  Maurice  of  Nassau  recommends  to  him  the 
use  of  hammocks  in  that  complaint ;  having  been  al- 
lured to  sleep,  while  suffering  under  it  himself,  by  the 
"  constant  motion  or  swinging  of  those  airy  beds." 
Count  Egmont,  and  the  Rhinegrave  who  "  was  killed 
last  summer  before  Maestricht,"  impart  to  him  their 
experiences. 

But  the  rank  of  the  writer  is  never  more  innocently 
disclosed,  than  where  he  takes  for  granted  the  com- 
pliments paid  by  foreigners  to  his  finiit-trees.  For  the 
taste  and  perfection  of  what  we  esteem  the  best,  he 
can  truly  say,  that  the  French,  who  have  eaten  his 
peaches  and  grapes  at  Shene  in  no  very  ill  year,  have 
generally  concluded  that  the  last  are  as  good  as  any 
they  have  eaten  in  France  on  this  side  Fontainebleau ; 
and  the  first  as  good  as  any  they  have  eat  in  Gascony. 
Italians  have  agreed  his  white  figs  to  be  as  good  as  any 
of  that  sort  in  Italy,  which  is  the  earlier  kind  of  white 
fig  there ;  for  in  the  later  kind  and  the  blue,  we  cannot 
come  near  the  warm  climates,  no  more  than  in  the 
Frontignac  or  Muscat  grape.  His  orange-trees,  too, 
are  as  large  as  any  he  saw  when  he  was  young  in 
France,  except  those  of  Fontainebleau  ;  or  what  he  has 
seen  since  in  the  Low  Countries,  except  some  very  old 


334  THE   GENTEEL    STYLE  IN   WRITING. 

ones  of  the  Prince  of  Orange's.  Of  grapes  he  had  the 
nonor  of  brino;ino;  over  four  sorts  into  England,  which 
ne  enumerates,  and  supposes  that  they  are  all  by  this 
time  pretty  common  among  some  gardeners  in  his 
neighborhood,  as  well  as  several  persons  of  quality ;  for 
he  ever  thought  all  things  of  this  kind  "  the  commoner 
they  are  made  the  better."  The  garden  pedantry  with 
which  he  asserts  that  'tis  to  little  purpose  to  plant  any 
of  the  best  fruits,  as  peaches  or  grapes,  hardly,  he 
doubts,  beyond  Northamptonshire  at  the  farthest  north- 
wards ;  and  praises  the  "  Bishop  of  Munster  at  Cose- 
velt,"  for  attempting  nothing  beyond  cherries  in  that 
cold  climate  ;  is  equally  pleasant  and  in  character.  "  I 
may  perhaps  "  (he  thus  ends  his  sweet  Garden  Essay 
with  a  passage  worthy  of  Cowley)  "  be  allowed  to 
know  something  of  this  trade,  since  I  have  so  long 
allowed  myself  to  be  good  for  nothing  else,  which  few 
men  will  do,  or  enjoy  their  gardens,  without  often  look- 
ing abroad  to  see  how  other  matters  play,  what  motions 
in  the  state,  and  what  invitations  they  may  hope  for 
into  other  scenes.  For  my  own  part,  as  the  country 
hfe,  and  this  part  of  it  more  particularly,  were  the  in- 
clination of  my  youth  itself,  so  they  are  the  pleasure  of 
my  age ;  and  I  can  truly  say  that,  among  many  great 
employments  that  have  fallen  to  my  share,  I  have 
never  asked  or  sought  for  any  of  them,  but  have  often 
endeavored  to  escape  from  them,  into  the  ease  and  fi'ee- 
dom  of  a  private  scene,  where  a  man  may  go  his  own 
way  and  his  own  pace,  in  the  common  paths  and  circles 
of  life.  The  measure  of  choosing  well  is  whether  a 
man  likes  what  he  has  chosen,  wliich,  I  thank  God,  haa 
befallen  me ;  and  though  among  the  follies  of  my  life, 
building  and  planting  have  not  been  the  least,  and  have 


THE   GENTEEL   STYLE   IN  WRITING.  335 

cost  me  more  than  I  have  the  confidence  to  own  .  yet 
they  have  been  folly  recompensed  by  the  sweetness  and 
satisfaction  of  this  retreat,  where,  since  my  resolution 
taken  of  never  entering  again  into  any  public  employ- 
ments, I  have  passed  five  years  without  ever  once  going 
to  town,  though  I  am  almost  in  sight  of  it,  and  have  a 
house  there  always  ready  to  receive  me.  Nor  has  this 
been  any  sort  of  affectation,  as  some  have  thought  it, 
but  a  mere  want  of  desire  or  humor  to  make  so  small 
a  remove  ;  for  when  I  am  m  this  corner,  I  can  truly 
say  with  Horace,  Me  quoties  refieit,  ^c. 

"  Me,  when  the  cold  Digentian  stream  revives, 
"What  does  my  friend  believe  I  think  or  ask? 
Let  me  yet  less  possess,  so  I  may  live, 
Whate'er  of  life  remains,  unto  myself. 
May  I  have  books  enough ;  and  one  year's  store, 
Not  to  depend  upon  each  doubtful  hour: 
This  is  enough  of  mighty  Jove  to  pray, 
Who,  as  he  pleases,  gives  and  takes  away." 

The  writings  of  Temple  are,  in  general,  after  this 
easy  copy.  On  one  occasion,  indeed,  his  -wit,  which 
was  mostly  subordinate  to  nature  and  tenderness,  has 
seduced  him  into  a  string  of  felicitous  antitheses ; 
which,  it  is  obvious  to  remark,  have  been  a  model  to 
Addison  and  succeeding  essayists.  "  Who  would  not 
be  covetous,  and  with  reason,"  he  says,  "  if  health 
could  be  purchased  with  gold  ?  who  not  ambitious,  if 
it  were  at  the  command  of  power,  or  restored  by 
honor  ?  but,  alas  !  a  white  staff  will  not  help  gouty 
feet  to  walk  better  than  a  common  cane ;  nor  a  blue 
ribbon  bind  up  a  wound  so  well  as  a  fillet.  The  glitter 
of  gold,  or  of  diamonds,  will  but  hurt  sore  eyes  instead 
of  curino;  them  ;  and  an  achini^  head  will  be  no  more 
eased  by  wearing  a  crown  than  a  common  nightcap." 


336  THE   GENTEEL   STYLE  IN   WRITING. 

In  a  far  better  style,  and  more  accordant  with  his 
own  humor  of  plainness,  are  the  concluding  sentences 
of  his  "  Discourse  upon  Poetry."  Temple  took  a  part 
in  the  controversy  about  the  ancient  and  the  modern 
learning  ;  and,  with  that  partiality  so  natural  and  so 
graceful  in  an  old  man,  whose  state  engagements  had 
left  him  little  leisure  to  look  into  modern  productions, 
while  his  retirement  gave  him  occasion  to  look  back 
upon  the  classic  studies  of  his  youth,  —  decided  in  favor 
of  the  latter.  "  Certain  it  is,"  he  says,  "  that,  whether 
the  fierceness  of  the  Gothic  humors,  or  noise  of  their 
perpetual  wars,  frighted  it  away,  or  that  the  unequal 
mixture  of  the  modern  languages  would  not  bear  it,  — 
the  great  heights  and  excellency  both  of  poetry  and 
music  fell  with  the  Roman  learning  and  empire,  and 
have  never  since  recovered  the  admiration  and  ap- 
plauses that  before  attended  them.  Yet,  such  as  they 
are  amongst  us,  they  must  be  confessed  to  be  the  softest 
and  the  sweetest,  the  most  general  and  most  innocent 
amusements  of  common  time  and  life.  They  still  find 
room  in  the  courts  of  princes,  and  the  cottages  of 
shepherds.  They  serve  to  revive  and  animate  the  dead 
calm  of  poor  and  idle  lives,  and  to  allay  or  divert  the 
violent  passions  and  perturbations  of  the  greatest  and 
the  busiest  men.  And  both  these  effects  are  of  equal 
use  to  human  life  ;  for  the  mind  of  man  is  like  the  sea, 
which  is  neither  agreeable  to  the  beholder  nor  the 
voyager,  in  a  calm  or  in  a  storm,  but  is  so  to  both 
when  a  little  agitated  by  gentle  gales ;  and  so  the 
mind,  when  moved  by  soft  and  easy  passions  or  affec- 
tions. I  know  very  well  that  many  who  pretend  to  be 
wise  by  the  forms  of  being  grave,  are  apt  to  despise 
both  poetry  and  music,  as  toys  and  trifles  too  light  for 


BARBARA   S .  337 

the  use  or  entertainment  of  serious  men.  B\it  who- 
ever find  themselves  wholly  insensible  to  their  charms, 
would,  I  think,  do  well  to  keep  their  own  counsel,  for 
fear  of  reproaching  their  own  temper,  and  bringing  the 
goodness  of  their  natures,  if  not  of  their  understandings, 
into  question.  While  this  world  lasts,  I  doubt  not  but 
the  pleasure  and  request  of  these  two  entertainments 
will  do  so  too ;  and  happy  those  that  content  them- 
selves with  these,  or  any  other  so  easy  and  so  innocent, 
and  do  not  trouble  the  world  or  other  men,  because 
the}''  cannot  be  quiet  themselves,  though  nobody  hurts 
them."  "  When  all  is  done  (he  concludes),  human 
life  is  at  the  greatest  and  the  best  but  like  a  froward 
child,  that  must  be  played  with,  and  humored  a  little, 
to  keep  it  quiet,  till  it  falls  asleep,  and  then  the  care  is 
over." 


BARBARA   S- 


On  the  noon  of  the  14th  of  November,  1743  or  4,  i 
forget  which  it  was,  just  as  the  clock  had  struck  one, 
Barbara  S ,  witli  her  accustomed  punctuality,  as- 
cended the  long  rambling  staircase,  with  awkward 
interposed  landing-places,  wliich  led  to  the  office,  or 
rather  a  sort  of  box  with  a  desk  in  it,  whereat  sat  tbe 
then  Treasurer  of  (what  few  of  our  readers  may  re- 
member) the  Old  Bath  Theatre.  All  over  the  island 
it  was  the  custom,  and  remams  so  I  believe  to  this  day, 
for  the  players  to  receive  their  weekly  stipend  on  the 
Saturday.     It  was  not  much  that  Barbara  had  to  claim. 

VOL.  HI.  22 


338  BARBARA   S- 


This  little  maid  had  just  entered  her  eleventh  year , 
but  her  important  station  at  the  theatre,  as  it  seemed  to 
her,  with  the  benefits  which  she  felt  to  accrue  from  hor 
pious  application  of  her  small  eai'nings,  had  given  an 
air  of  womanhood  to  her  steps  and  to  her  behavior. 
You  would  have  taken  her  to  have  been  at  least  five 
years  older. 

Till  latterly  she  had  merely  been  employed  in  cho- 
ruses, or  where  children  were  wanted  to  fill  up  the 
scene.  But  the  manager,  observing  a  diligence  and 
adroitness  in  her  above  her  age,  had  for  some  few 
months  past  intrusted  to  her  the  performance  of  whole 
parts.  You  may  guess  the  self-consequence  of  the 
promoted  Barbara.  She  had  already  drawn  tears  in 
young  Arthur ;  had  rallied  Richard  with  infantine 
petulance  in  the  Duke  of  York  ;  and  m  her  turn  had 
rebuked  that  petulance  when  she  was  Prince  of  Wales. 
She  would  have .  done  the  elder  child  in  Morton's 
pathetic  afterpiece  to  the  life ;  but  as  yet  the  "  Chil- 
di'en  in  the  Wood"  was  not. 

Long  after  this  little  girl  was  gi'own  an  aged  woman, 
I  have  seen  some  of  these  small  parts,  each  making  two 
or  three  pages  at  most,  copied  out  in  the  rudest  hand 
of  the  then  prompter  who  doubtless  transcribed  a  little 
more  carefully  and  fairly  for  the  grown-up  tragedy 
ladies  of  the  establishment.  But  such  as  they  were, 
blotted  and  scrawled,  as  for  a  child's  use,  she  kept  them 
all ;  and  in  the  zenith  of  her  after  reputation  it  was  a 
delightful  sight  to  behold  them  bound  up  in  costliest 
morocco,  each  single,  —  each  small  part  making  a  book, 
—  with  fine  clasps,  glit-splashed,  &c.  She  had  con- 
scientiously kept  them  as  they  had  been  delivered  to 
her;    not  a  blot  had  been  effaced  or  tampered  with. 


BARBARA   S .  33" 

They  were  precious  to  her  for  theu*  affecting  remem- 
brancings.  They  were  her  j^incipia^  her  rudiments  ; 
the  elementary  atoms  ;  the  little  steps  by  which  she 
pressed  forAvard  to  perfection.  "  What,"  she  would 
say,  "  could  India-rubber,  or  a  pumice-stone,  ha^e 
done  for  these  darlings  ?  " 

I  am  in  no  hurry  to  begin  my  story,  —  indeed  J 
have  little  or  none  to  tell,  —  so  I  will  just  mention  an 
observation  of  hers  connected  with  that  interesting 
time. 

Not  long  before  she  died  I  had  been  discoursing  with 
her  on  the  quantity  of  real  present  emotion  which  a 
great  tragic  performer  experiences  during  acting.  I 
ventured  to  think,  that  though  in  the  first  instance  such 
players  must  have  possessed  the  feelings  which  they  so 
powerfully  called  up  in  others,  yet  by  frequent  repeti- 
tion those  feelings  must  become  deadened  in  great 
measure,  and  the  performer  trust  to  the  memory  of 
past  emotion,  rather  than  express  a  present  one.  She 
indignantly  repelled  the  notion,  that  with  a  truly  great 
tragedian  the  operation,  by  which  such  effects  were 
produced  upon  an  audience,  could  ever  degrade  itself 
into  what  was  purely  mechanical.  With  much  deli- 
cacy, avoiding  to  instance  in  her  se?f-experience,  she 
told  me,  that  so  long  ago  as  when  she  used  to  play  the 
part  of  the  Little  Son  to  Mrs.  Porter's  Isabella,  (I 
think  it  was,)  when  that  impressive  actress  has  been 
bending  over  her  in  some  heart-rending  colloquy,  she 
has  felt  real  hot  tears  come  trickling  from  her,  which 
(to  use  her  powerful  expression)  have  perfectly  scalded 
her  back. 

I  am  not  quite  so  sure  that  it  was  Mrs.  Porter  ;  but 
it  was  some  gr<;at  actress  of  that  day.     The  name  is 


310  BARBARA  S . 

indifferent ;  but  the  fact  of  the  scalding  tears  I  most 
distinctly  remember. 

I  was  always  fond  of  the  society  of  players,  and  am 
not  sure  that  an  impediment  in  my  speech  (which 
certainly  kept  me  out  of  the  pulpit)  even  more  than 
certain  personal  disqualifications,  which  are  often  gol 
over  in  that  profession,  did  not  prevent  me  at  one  time 
of  life  from  adopting  it.  I  have  had  the  honor  (I  must 
ever  call  it)  once  to  have  been  admitted  to  the  tea- 
table  of  Miss  Kelly.  I  have  played  at  serious  wliist 
with  Mr.  Liston.  I  have  chatted  with  ever  good- 
humored  Mrs.  Charles  Kemble.  I  have  conversed  as 
friend  to  friend  with  her  accomplished  Imsband.  I 
have  been  indulged  with  a  classical  conference  with 
Macready  ;  and  with  a  sight  of  the  Player-picture 
gallery,  at  Mr.  Mathews's,  when  the  kind  owner,  to 
remunerate  me  for  my  love  of  the  old  actors  (whom  he 
loves  so  much),  went  over  it  with  me,  supplying  to  his 
capital  collection,  what  alone  the  artist  could  not  give 
them  —  voice  ;  and  their  living  motion.  Old  tones, 
half-faded,  of  Dodd,  and  Parsons,  and  Baddeley,  have 
lived  again  for  me   at  his  bidding.     Only  Edwm  he 

could  not  restore  to  me.     I  have  supped  "with ; 

but  I  am  growing  a  coxcomb.  . 

As  I  was  about  to  say,  —  at  the  desk  of  the  then 
treasurer  of  the  old  Bath  theatre,  —  not  Diamond's,  — 
presented  herself  the  little  Barbara  S . 

The  parents  of  Barbara  had  been  in  reputable  cir- 
cumstances. The  father  had  practised,  I  believt^,  as  an 
apothecary  in  the  town.  But  his  practice,  from  causes 
which  I  feel  my  own  infirmity  too  sensibly  that  way  to 
arraign,  —  or  perhaps  from  that  pure  infelicity  which 
accompanies  some  people  in   their  walk  through  life, 


BARBARA   S .  341 

and  which  it  is  impossible  to  lay  at  the  door  of  impra- 
dence,  —  was  now  reduced  to  nothing.  They  were  in 
fact  in  the  very  teeth  of  starvation,  when  the  manager, 
who  knew  and  respected  them  in  better  days,  took  the 
little  Barbara  into  his  company. 

At  the  period  I  commenced  with,  her  slender  earn- 
ings were  the  sole  support  of  the  family,  including  two 
younger  sisters.  I  must  throw  a  veil  over  some  morti- 
fying circumstances.  Enough  to  say,  that  her  Satur- 
day's pittance  was  the  only  chance  of  a  Sunday's 
(generally  their  only)  meal  of  meat. 

One  thing  I  will  only  mention,  that  in  some  child's 
part,  where  in  her  theatrical  character  she  was  to  sup 
oflPa  roast  fowl  (O  joy  to  Barbara  !)  some  comic  actor, 
who  was  for  the  night  caterer  for  this  dainty  —  in  the 
misguided  humor  of  his  part,  threw  over  the  dish  such 
a  quantity  of  salt  (O  grief  and  pain  of  heart  to  Bar- 
bara !)  that  when  she  crammed  a  portion  of  it  into  her 
mouth,  she  was  obliged  sputteringly  to  reject  it ;  and 
what  with  shame  of  her  ill-acted  part,  and  pain  of  real 
appetite  at  missing  such  a  dainty,  her  little  heart  sobbed 
almost  to  breaking,  till  a  flood  of  tears,  which  the  well- 
fed  spectators  were  totally  unable  to  comprehend,  mer- 
cifully relieved  her. 

This  was  the  little  starved,  meritorious  maid,  who 
stood  before  old  Ravenscroft,  the  treasurer,  for  hel 
Saturday's  payment. 

Ravenscroft  was  a  man,  I  have  heard  many  old 
theatrical  people  besides  herself  say,  of  all  men  least 
calculated  for  a  treasurer.  He  had  no  head  for  ac- 
counts, paid  away  at  random,  kept  scarce  any  books, 
and  summing  up  at  the  week's  end,  if  he  found  hlm- 
Belf  a  pound  or  so  deficient,  blest  himself  that  it  was  no 
worse. 


342  BARBARA   b- 


Now  Barbara's  weekly  stipend  was  a  bare  half 
guinea.  By  mistake  he  popped  into  her  hand  —  a 
whole  one. 

Barbara  tripped  away. 

She  was  entirely  unconscious  at  first  of  the  mistake : 
God  knows,  Ravenscroft  would  never  have  discov- 
ered it. 

But  when  she  had  got  down  to  the  first  of  those 
uncouth  landing-places,  she  became  sensible  of  an 
unusual  weight  of  metal  pressing  her  little  hand. 

Now  mark  the  dilemma. 

She  was  by  nature  a  good  child.  From  her  parents 
and  those  about  her  she  had  imbibed  no  contrary 
influence.  But  then  they  had  taught  her  nothing. 
Poor  men's  smoky  cabins  are  not  always  porticos  of 
moral  philosophy.  This  little  maid  had  no  instinct  to 
evil,  but  then  she  might  be  said  to  have  no  fixed 
principle.  She  had  heard  honesty  commended,  but 
never  dreamed  of  its  application  to  herself.  She 
thought  of  it  as  something  which  concerned  grown-up 
people,  men  and  women.  She  had  never  known  temp- 
tation, or  thought  of  preparing  resistance  against  it. 

Her  first  impulse  was  to  go  back  to  the  old  treasurer, 
and  explain  to  him  his  blunder.  He  was  already  so 
confused  with  age,  besides  a  natiu*al  want  of  punctual- 
ity, that  she  would  have  had  some  difficulty  in  making 
him  understand  it.  She  saw  that  in  an  instant.  And 
then  it  was  such  a  bit  of  money !  and  then  the  image 
of  a  larger  allowance  of  butcher's-meat  on  their  table 
next  day  came  across  her,  till  her  little  eyes  glistened, 
and  her  mouth  moistened.  But  then  Mr.  Ravenscroft 
had  always  been  so  good-natured,  had  stood  her  friend 
behind  the  scenes,  and  even  recommended  her  promo- 


BARBARA   S .  343 

tion  to  some  of  her  little  parts.  But  again  the  old  man 
was  reputed  to  be  worth  a  world  of  money.  He  was 
supposed  to  have  fifty  pomids  a  year  clear  of  the  the- 
atre. And  then  came  staring  upon  her  the  figures  of 
her  little  stockingless  and  shoeless  sisters.  And  when 
she  looked  at  her  own  neat  white  cotton  stockings, 
which  her  situation  at  the  theatre  had  made  it  indis- 
pensable for  her  mother  to  provide  for  her,  with  hard 
straining  and  pinching  from  the  family  stock,  and 
thought  how  glad  she  should  be  to  cover  their  poor  feet 
with  the  same,  —  and  how  then  they  could  accompany 
her  to  rehearsals,  which  they  had  hitherto  been  pre- 
cluded from  doing,  by  reason  of  their  unfashionable 
attire,  —  in  these  thoughts  she  reached  the  second  land- 
ing-place, —  the  second,  I  mean,  from  the  top,  —  for 
there  was  still  another  left  to  traverse. 

Now  virtue  support  Barbara ! 

And  that  never-failing  friend  did  step  in,  —  for  at 
that  moment  a  strength  not  her  own,  I  have  heard  her 
say,  was  revealed  to  her,  —  a  reason  above  reasoning, 
—  and  without  her  own  agency,  as  it  seemed  (for  she 
never  felt  her  feet  to  move)  she  found  herself  trans- 
ported back  to  the  individual  desk  she  had  just  quitted, 
and  her  hand  in  the  old  hand  of  Ravenscroft,  who  in 
silence  took  back  the  refunded  treasure,  and  who  had 
been  sitting  (good  man)  insensible  to  the  lapse  of  min- 
utes, which  to  her  were  anxious  ages,  and  from  that 
moment  a  deep  peace  fell  upon  her  heart,  and  she  knew 
the  quality  of  honesty. 

A  year  or  two's  unrepining  application  to  her  profes- 
sion brightened  up  the  feet,  and  the  prospects,  of  her 
little  sisters,  set  the  whole  family  upon  their  legs  again, 
and  released  her  from  the  difficulty  of  di<5cussing  mora] 
dogmas  upon  a  landing-place. 


344  THE  TOMBS  IN   THE   ABBEY. 

I  have  heard  her  say  that  it  was  a  surprise,  not  much 
short  of  mortification  to  her,  to  see  the  coolness  with 
which  the  old  man  pocketed  the  difference,  which  had 
caused  her  such  mortal  throes. 

This  anecdote  of  herself  I  had  in  the  year  1800, 
from  the  mouth  of  the  late  Mrs.  Crawford,*  then  sixty- 
seven  years  of  age,  (she  died  soon  after,)  and  to  her 
struggles  upon  this  childish  occasion  I  have  sometimes 
ventured  to  think  her  indebted  for  that  power  of  i-end- 
ing  the  heart  in  the  representation  of  conflicting  emo- 
tions, for  which  in  after  years  she  was  considered  as 
little  inferior  (if  at  all  so  in  the  part  of  Lady  Ran- 
dolph) even  to  Mrs.  Siddons. 


THE  TOMBS  IN  THE  ABBEY. 

m  A  LETTER  TO  R S ,  ESQ. 

Though  in  some  points  of  doctrine,  and  perhaps  ot 
discipline,  I  am  diffident  of  lending  a  perfect  assent  to 
that  church  which  you  have  so  worthily  Mstorified,  yet 
may  the  ill  time  never  come  to  me,  when  with  a  chilled 
heart  or  a  portion  of  irreverent  sentiment,  I  shall  enter 
her  beautiful  and  time-hallowed  edifices.  Judge  then 
of  my  mortification  when,  after  attending  the  choral 
anthems  of  last  Wednesday  at  Westminster,  and  being 
desirous  of   renewing   my  acquaintance,   after   lapsed 

*  The  maiden  name  of  this  lady  was  Street,  which  she  changed  by 
successive  marriages,  for  those  of  Dancer,  Barry,  and  Crawford.  She  iva« 
Mrs.  Crawford,  a  third  time  a  widow,  when  I  knew  her. 


THE  TOMBS   IN   THE   ABBEY.  345 

years,  with  the  tombs  and  antiquities  there,  I  found 
myself  excluded ;  turned  out  like  a  dog,  or  some  pro- 
fane person,  into  the  common  street,  with  feelings  not 
very  congenial  to  the  place,  or  to  the  solemn  service 
which  I  had  been  listening  to.  It  was  a  jar  after  that 
music. 

You  had  your  education  at  Westminster ;  and  doubt- 
less among  those  dim  aisles  and  cloisters,  you  must 
have  gathered  much  of  that  devotional  feeling  in  those 
young  years,  on  which  your  purest  mind  feeds  still  — 
and  may  it  feed !  The  antiquarian  spirit,  strong  in 
you,  and  gracefully  blending  ever  with  the  religious, 
may  have  been  sown  in  you  among  those  wrecks  of 
splendid  mortality.  You  owe  it  to  the  place  of  youi 
education  ;  you  owe  it  to  your  learned  fondness  for  tht 
architecture  of  your  ancestors ;  you  owe  it  to  the  ven- 
erableness  of  your  ecclesiastical  establishment,  which 
is  daily  lessened  and  called  in  question  through  these 
practices  —  to  speak  aloud  your  sense  of  them  ;  nevei 
to  desist  raising  your  voice  against  them  till  they  be 
totally  done  away  with  and  abolished ;  till  the  doors  of 
Westminster  Abbey  be  no  longer  closed  against  the 
decent,  though  low-in-purse,  enthusiast,  or  blameless 
devotee,  who  must  commit  an  injury  against  his  family 
economy,  if  he  would  be  indulged  with  a  bare  admis- 
sion within  its  walls.  You  owe  it  to  the  decencies 
which  you  wish  to  see  maintained,  in  its  impressive 
services,  that  our  Cathedral  be  no  longer  an  object  of 
inspection  to  the  poor  at  those  times  only,  in  which 
they  must  rob  from  their  attendance  on  the  worship 
every  minute  which  they  can  bestow  upon  the  fabric. 
In  vain  the  public  prints  have  taken  up  this  subject,  in 
vain  such  poor  nameless  writers  as  myself  express  theii 


346  THE   TOMBS  IN   THE   ABBEY. 

indignation.  A  word  from  you,  Sir,  —  a  hint  in  your 
Journal,  —  would  be  sufficient  to  fling  open  the  doors  of 
the  Beautiful  Temple  again,  as  we  can  remember  them 
when  we  were  boys.  At  that  time  of  life,  what  would 
the  imaginative  faculty  (such  as  it  is)  in  both  of  us, 
have  suffered,  if  the  entrance  to  so  much  reflection  had 
been  obstructed  by  the  demand  of  so  much  silver !  If 
we  had  scraped  it  up  to  gain  an  occasional  admission 
(as  we  certainly  should  have  done),  would  the  sight  of 
those  old  tombs  have  been  as  impressive  to  us  (while 
we  have  been  weighing  anxiously  prudence  against  sen- 
timent) as  when  the  gates  stood  open  as  those  of  the 
adjacent  Park ;  when  we  could  walk  in  at  any  time,  as 
the  mood  brought  us,  for  a  shorter,  or  longer  time,  as 
that  lasted  ?  Is  the  being  shown  over  a  place  the  same 
as  silently  for  oui'selves  detecting  the  genius  of  it  ?  In 
no  part  of  our  beloved  Abbey  now  can  a  person  find 
entrance  (out  of  service  time)  under  the  sum  of  two 
sldllings.  The  rich  and  the  great  will  smile  at  the 
anticlimax,  presumed  to  lie  in  these  two  short  words. 
But  you  can  tell  them.  Sir,  how  much  quiet  worth, 
how  much  capacity  for  enlarged  feeling,  how  much 
taste  and  genius,  may  coexist,  especially  in  youth,  with 
a  purse  incompetent  to  this  demand.  A  respected 
fi'iend  of  ours,  during  his  late  visit  to  the  metropolis, 
presented  himself  for  admission  to  St.  Paul's.  At  the 
same  time  a  decently  clothed  man,  with  as  decent  a 
wife  and  child,  were  bargaining  for  the  same  indul- 
gence. The  price  was  only  twopence  each  person. 
The  poor  but  decent  man  hesitated,  desirous  to  go  in  ; 
but  there  were  three  of  them,  and  he  turned  away  re- 
hictantly.  Perhaps  he  wished  to  have  seen  the  tomb 
of  Nelson.     Perhaps  the  Interior  of  the  Cathedral  was 


THE   TOMBS  IN  THE   ABBEY.  347 

his  object.  But  in  the  state  of  his  finances,  even  six- 
pence might  reasonably  seem  too  much.  Tell  the 
Aristocracy  of  the  country  (no  man  can  do  it  more 
impressively)  ;  instruct  them  of  what  value  these  insig- 
nificant pieces  of  money,  these  minims  to  their  sight, 
may  be  to  their  humbler  brethren.  Shame  these  Sellers 
out  of  the  Temple.  Stifle  not  the  suggestions  of  your 
better  nature  with  the  pretext,  that  an  indiscriminate 
admission  would  expose  the  Tombs  to  \"iolation.  Re- 
member your  boy-days.  Did  you  ever  see,  or  hear,  of 
a  mob  in  the  Abbey,  while  it  was  free  to  all  ?  Do  the 
rabble  come  there,  or  trouble  their  heads  about  such 
speculations  ?  It  is  all  that  you  can  do  to  drive  them 
into  your  churches  ;  they  do  not  voluntarily  offer  them- 
selves. They  have,  alas  !  no  passion  for  antiquities ;  for 
tomb  of  king  or  prelate,  sage  f  r  poet.  If  they  had, 
they  would  be  no  longer  the  rabble. 

For  forty  years  that  I  have  known  the  Fabric,  the 
only  well-attested  charge  of  violation  adduced,  has 
been  —  a  ridiculous  dismemberment  committed  upon 
the  effigy  of  that  amiable  spy,  Major  Andre.  And  is 
it  for  this  —  the  wanton  mischief  of  some  school-boy, 
fired  perhaps  with  raw  notions  of  Transatlantic  Free- 
dom—  or  the  remote  possibility  of  such  a  mischief  oc- 
curring again,  so  easily  to  be  prevented  by  stationing 
a  constable  within  the  walls,  if  the  vergers  are  incom- 
petent to  the  duty  —  is  it  u]X)n  such  wretched  pre- 
tences that  the  people  of  England  are  made  to  pay  a 
new  Peter's  Pence  so  long  abrogated ;  or  must  content 
themselves  with  contemplating  the  ragged  Exterior  of 
their  Cathedral  ?  The  mischief  was  done  about  the 
time  that  you  were  a  scholar  there.  Do  you  know 
anything  about  the  unfortmiate  relic? 


348  AMICUS  RiiiUVIVUS. 


AMICUS  REDIVIVUS. 

Where  were  ye,  Nymphs,  when  the  remorseless  deep 
Closed  o'er  the  head  of  your  loved  Lycidas  ? 

I  DO  not  know  when  I  have  experienced  a  stiaiigei 
sensation  than  on  seeing  my  old  fiiend  G.  D.,  who 
had  been  paying  me  a  morning  visit  a  few  Sundays 
back,  at  my  cottage  at  Ishngton,  upon  taking  leave, 
instead  of  turning  down  the  right-hand  path  by  which 
he  had  entered  —  with  staff  in  hand,  and  at  noonday 
deliberately  march  right  forwards  into  the  midst  of 
the  stream  that  runs  by  us,  and  totally  disappear. 

A  spectacle  like  this  at  dusk  would  have  been  ap- 
palling enough  ;  but  in  the  broad  open  daylight,  to 
witness  such  an  unreserved  motion  towards  self-de- 
struction in  a  valued  friend,  took  from  me  all  power 
of  speculation. 

How  I  found  my  feet,  I  know  not.  Consciousness 
was  quite  gone.  Some  spirit,  not  my  own,  whirled 
me  to  the  spot.  I  remember  nothing  but  the  silvery 
apparition  of  a  good  wliite  head  emerging ;  nigh 
which  a  staff  (the  hand  unseen  that  wielded  it) 
pointed  upwards,  as  feeling  for  the  skies.  In  a  mo- 
ment (if  time  was  in  that  time)  he  was  on  my 
shoulders,  and  I  —  freighted  with  a  load  more  pre- 
cious than  his  who  bore  Anchises. 

And  here  I  cannot  but  do  justice  to  the  officious 
zeal  of  sundry  passers-by,  who  albeit  arriving  a  little 
too  late  to  participate  in  the  honors  of  the  rescue,  in 
philanthropic  shoals  came  thronging  to  communicate 
their  advice  as  to  the  recovery ;  prescribing  variously 


AMICUS   KEDIVIVUS.  349 

the  application,  or  non-application,  of  salt,  &c.,  to  the 
person  of  the  patient.  Life  meantime  was  ebbing  fast 
away,  amidst  the  stifle  of  conflicting  judgments,  when 
one,  more  sagacious  than  the  rest,  by  a  bright  thought, 
proposed  sending  for  the  Doctor.  Trite  as  the  counsel 
was,  and  impossible,  as  one  should  think,  to  be  missed 
on,  —  shall  I  confess  ?  —  in  this  emergency  it  was  to 
me  as  if  an  Angel  had  spoken.  Great  previous  exer- 
tions, —  and  mine  had  not  been  inconsiderable,  —  are 
commonly  followed  by  a  debility  of  purpose.  This 
was  a  moment  of  irresolution. 

MoNOCULUS,  —  for  so,  in  default  of  catching  his  true 
name,  I  choose  to  designate  the  medical  gentleman 
who  now  appeared,  —  is  a  grave,  middle-aged  person, 
who,  without  having  studied  at  the  college,  or  truckled 
to  the  pedantry  of  a  diploma,  hath  employed  a  great 
portion  of  his  valuable  time  in  experimental  processes 
upon  the  bodies  of  unfortunate  fellow-creatures,  in 
whom  the  vital  spark,  to  mere  vulgar  thinking,  would 
seem  extinct,  and  lost  forever.  He  omitted  no  occasion 
of  obtruding  his  services,  fi'om  a  case  of  common  sur- 
feit suffocation  to  the  ignobler  obstructions,  sometimes 
induced  by  a  too  wilful  application  of  the  plant  cayv- 
nobis  outwardly.  But  though  he  declineth  not  alto- 
gether these  drier  extinctions,  his  occupation  tendeth, 
for  the  most  part,  to  water-practice  ;  for  the  conven- 
ience of  which,  he  hath  judiciously  fixed  his  quarters 
near  the  grand  repository  of  the  stream  mentioned, 
where  day  and  night,  from  his  little  watchtower,  at 
the  Middleton's  Head,  he  listeneth  to  detect  the  wrecks 
of  di-owned  mortality,  —  partly,  as  he  saith,  to  be  upon 
the  spot,  —  and  partly,  because  the  liquids  which  he 
o&eth  to  prescribe  to  himself,  and  his  patients,  on  these 


350  AMICUS  REDIVIVLS. 

distressing  occasions,  are  ordinarily  more  conveniently 
to  be  found  at  these  common  hostleries  than  in  the 
shops  and  phials  of  the  apothecaries.  His  ear  hath 
arrived  to  such  finesse  by  practice,  tliat  it  is  reported 
he  can  distinguish  a  plunge  at  a  half  furlong  distance  ; 
and  can  tell  if  it  be  casual  or  deliberate.  He  weareth 
a  medal,  suspended  over  a  suit,  originally  of  a  sad 
brown,  but  which,  by  time  and  frequency  of  nightly 
divings,  has  been  dinged  into  a  true  professional  sable. 
He  passeth  by  the  name  of  Doctor,  and  is  remarkable 
for  wanting  his  left  eye.  His  remedy  —  after  a  suf- 
ficient application  of  warm  blankets,  friction,  &c.,  is  a 
simple  tumbler  or  more,  of  the  purest  Cognac,  with 
water,  made  as  hot  as  the  convalescent  can  bear  it. 
"Where  he  findeth,  as  in  the  case  of  my  friend,  a 
squeamish  subject,  he  condescendeth  to  be  the  taster ; 
and  showeth,  by  his  own  example,  the  innocuous 
nature  of  the  prescription.  Nothing  can  be  more  kind 
or  encouraging  than  this  procedure.  It  addeth  confi- 
dence to  the  patient,  to  see  his  medical  adviser  go  hand 
in  hand  with  himself  in  the  remedy.  When  the  doctor 
swalloweth  his  own  draught,  what  peevish  invalid  can 
refuse  to  pledge  him  in  the  potion  ?  In  fine,  Monoo 
ULUS  is  a  humane,  sensible  man,  who,  for  a  slender 
pittance,  scarce  enough  to  sustain  life,  is  content  to 
wear  it  out  in  the  endeavor  to  save  the  lives  of  others, 
—  his  pretensions  so  moderate,  that  with  difficulty  I 
could  press  a  crown  upon  him,  for  the  price  of  restor- 
ing the  existence  of  such  an  invaluable  creature  to 
society  as  G.  D. 

It  was  pleasant  to  observe  the  effect  of  the  subsiding 
alarm  upon  the  nerves  of  the  dear  absentee.  It  seemed 
to  have  given  a  shake  t"  memory,  calling  up  notice 


AMICUS  REDIVIVUS.  351 

after  notice  of  all  the  providential  deliverances  he  had 
experienced  in  the  course  of  hij  long  and  innocent  life. 
Sitting  up  in  my  couch,  —  my  couch  which,  naked  and 
void  of  furniture  hitherto,  for  the  salutary  repose  which 
it  administered,  shall  be  honored  with  costly  valance, 
at  some  price,  and  henceforth  be  a  state-bed  at  Cole- 
brook,  —  he  discoursed  of  marvellous  escapes  —  by 
carelessness  of  nurses  —  by  pails  of  gelid,  and  kettles 
of  the  boiling  element,  in  infancy,  —  by  orchard  pranks, 
and  snapping  twigs,  in  school-boy  frolics  —  by  descent 
of  tiles  at  Trumpington,  and  of  heavier  tomes  at  Pem- 
broke, —  by  studious  watchings,  inducing  frightful  vigil- 
ance, —  by  want,  and  the  fear  of  want,  and  all  the  sore 
throbbings  of  the  learned  head.  Anon,  he  Avould  burst 
out  into  little  fragments  of  clianting  —  of  songs  long 
ago  —  ends  of  deliverance  hymns,  not  remembered 
before  since  childhood,  but  coming  up  now,  wlien  his 
heart  was  made  tender  as  a  child's,  —  for  the  tremor 
cordis^  in  the  retrospect  of  a  recent  deliverance,  as  in 
a  case  of  impending  danger,  acting  upon  an  innocent 
heart,  will  produce  a  self-tenderness,  which  we  should 
do  ill  to  christen  cowardice ;  and  Shakspeare,  in  the 
latter  crisis,  has  made  his  good  Sir  Hugh  to  remem- 
ber the  sitting  by  Babylon,  and  to  mutter  of  shallow 
rivers. 

Waters  of  Sir  Hugh  Middleton  —  what  a  spark  you 
were  like  to  have  extinguished  forever  !  Your  sahi- 
brious  streams  to  this  City,  for  now  near  two  centuries, 
would  hardly  have  atoned  for  what  you  were  in  a 
moment  washing  away.  Mockery  of  a  river,  —  liquid 
artifice,  —  wretched  conduit !  henceforth  rank  with 
canals,  and  sluggish  aqueducts.  Was  it  for  tliis,  tliat 
smit  in  boyhood  with  the  explorations  of  that  Abys- 


852  AMICUS   KEDIVIVUS. 

sinian  traveller,  I  paced  the  vales  of  Amwell  to  ex- 
plore your  tributary  springs,  to  trace  your  salutary 
waters  sparkling  through  green  Hertfordshire,  and  cul- 
tured Enfield  parks  ?  —  Ye  have  no  swans  —  no  Naiads 
— no  river  God,  —  or  did  the  benevolent  hoary  aspect 
of  my  friend  tempt  ye  to  suck  him  in,  that  ye  also 
might  have  the  tutelary  genius  of  your  waters  ? 

Had  he  been  drowned  in  Cam,  there  Avould  have 
been  some  consonancy  in  it ;  but  what  willows  had  ye 
to  wave  and  rustle  over  his  moist  sepulture  ?  —  or, 
having  no  name^  besides  that  unmeaning  assumption  of 
eternal  novity^  did  ye  think  to  get  one  by  the  noble 
prize,  and  henceforth  to  be  termed  the  Stream  Dy- 

ERIAN  ? 

And  could  such  spacious  virtue  find  a  grave 
Beneath  the  imposthumed  bubble  of  a  wave  ? 

I  protest,  George,  you  shall  not  venture  out  again  — 
no,  not  by  daylight  —  without  a  sufficient  pair  of  spec- 
tacles, —  in  your  musing  moods  especially.  Your  ab- 
sence of  mind  we  have  borne,  till  your  presence  of 
body  came  to  be  called  in  question  by  it.  You  shall 
not  go  wandering  into  Euripus  with  Aristotle,  if  we 
can  help  it.  Fie,  man,  to  turn  dipper  at  your  years, 
after  your  many  tracts  in  favor  of  sprinkling  only ! 

I  have  nothing  but  water  in  my  head  o'nights  since 
this  frightful  accident.  Sometimes  I  am  with  Clarence 
m  his  dream.  At  others,  I  behold  Christian  beginning 
to  sink,  and  crying  out  to  his  good  brother  Hopeful, 
(that  is,  to  me,)  "  I  sink  in  deep  waters  ;  the  billows 
go  over  my  head,  all  the  waves  go  over  me.  Selah." 
Then  I  have  before  me  Palinurus,  just  letting  go  the 
steerage.  I  cry  out  too  late  to  save.  Next  follow  —  a 
mournful  procession  —  suicidal  faces  ^  saved  agamst  their 


AMICUS  REDIVIVUS.  353 

will  from  drowning ;  dolefully  trailing  a  length  of  re- 
luctant gratefulness,  with  ropy  weeds  pendent  from 
locks  of  watchet  hue,  —  constrained  Lazari,  —  Pluto's 
half-subjects,  —  stolen  fees  from  the  grave,  —  bilking 
Charon  of  his  fare.  At  their  head  Arion  —  or  is  it 
G.  D.  ?  —  in  his  singing  garments  marcheth  singly, 
with  harp  in  hand,  and  votive  garland,  which  Machaon 
(or  Dr.  Hawes)  snatcheth  straight,  intending  to  sus- 
pend it  to  the  stern  God  of  Sea.  Then  follow  dismal 
streams  of  Lethe,  in  which  the  half-drenched  on  earth 
are  consti'ained  to  drown  downright,  by  wharves  where 
Ophelia  twice  acts  her  muddy  death. 

And,  doubtless,  there  is  some  notice  in  that  invisible 
world,  when  one  of  us  approacheth  (as  my  friend  did 
so  lately)  to  their  inexorable  precincts.  When  a  soul 
knocks  once,  twice,  at  death's  door,  the  sensation 
aroused  within  the  palace  must  be  considerable  ;  and 
the  grim  Feature,  by  modern  science  so  often  dispos 
sessed  of  his  prey,  must  have  learned  by  this  time  to 
pity  Tantalus. 

A  pulse  assuredly  was  felt  along  the  Hne  of  the 
Elysian  shades,  when  the  near  arrival  of  G.  D.  was 
announced  by  no  equivocal  indications.  From  their 
seats  of  Asphodel  arose  the  gentler  and  the  graver 
ghosts  —  poet,  or  historian  —  of  Grecian  or  of  Roman 
lore,  —  to  crown  with  unfading  chaplets  the  half-finished 
love-labors  of  their  unwearied  scholiast.  Him  Mark- 
land  expected,  —  him  Tyrwhitt  hoped  to  encounter,  — 
him  the  sweet  lyi'ist  of  Peter  House,  whom  he  had 
barely  seen  upon  earth,*  with  newest  airs  prepared  to 

greet ;  and  patron  of  the  gentle  Christ's  boy, — 

who  should  have  been  his  patron  through  life,  —  the 

*  Graium  tantum  vidit. 
VOL.  ui.  28 


354  SIR  PHILIP   SYDNEY'S   SONNETS. 

mild  Askew,  with  longing  aspirations  leaned  foremost 
from  his  venerable  ^sculapian  chair,  to  welcome  into 
that  happy  company  the  matured  virtues  of  the  man, 
whose  tender  scions  in  the  boy  he  himself  upon  earth 
i  id  so  prophetically  fed  and  watered. 


SOME  SONNETS  OF  SIR  PHILIP  SYDNEY. 

Sydney's  Sonnets  —  I  speak  of  the  best  of  them  — 
are  among  the  very  best  of  their  sort.  They  fall  below 
the  plain  moral  dignity,  the  sanctity,  and  high  yet 
modest  spirit  of  self-approval,  of  Milton,  in  his  com- 
positions of  a  similar  structure.  They  are  in  truth 
what  Milton,  censuring  the  Arcadia,  says  of  that  work, 
(to  which  they  are  a  sort  of  after-tune  or  application,) 
"  vain  and  amatorious  "  enough,  yet  the  things  in  their 
kind  (as  he  confesses  to  be  true  of  the  romance)  may 
be  "  full  of  worth  and  wit."  They  savor  of  the  Cour 
tier,  it  must  be  allowed,  and  not  of  the  Commonwealths- 
man.  But  Milton  was  a  Courtier  when  he  wrote  the 
Masque  at  Ludlow  Castle,  and  still  more  a  Courtier 
when  he  composed  the  Arcades.  When  the  national 
struggle  was  to  begin,  he  becomingly  cast  these  vanities 
behind  him ;  and  if  the  order  of  time  had  thrown  Sir 
Philip  upon  the  crisis  which  preceded  the  Revolution, 
there  is  no  reason  why  he  should  not  have  acted  the 
same  part  in  that  emergency,  which  has  glorified  the 
name  of  a  later  Sydney.  He  did  not  want  for  plain- 
ness or  boldness  of  spirit.     His  letter  on  the  French 


SIR  PHILIP   SYDNEY'S   SONNETS.  355 

match  may  testify  he  could  speak  his  mind  freely  to 
Princes.  The  times  did  not  call  him  to  the  scaffold. 
The  Sonnets  Avhich  we  oftenest  call  to  mind  of 
Milton  were  the  compositions  of  his  maturest  years. 
Those  of  Sydney,  which  I  am  about  to  produce,  were 
written  in  the  very  heyday  of  his  blood.  They  are 
stuck  full  of  amorous  fancies  —  far-fetched  conceits, 
befitting  his  occupation :  for  True  Love  thinks  no 
labor  to  send  out  Thoughts  upon  the  vast,  and  more 
than  Indian  voyages,  to  bring  home  rich  pearls,  out- 
landish wealth,  gums,  jewels,  spicery,  to  sacrifice  in 
self-depreciating  similitudes,  as  shadows  of  true  amia- 
bilities in  the  Beloved.  We  must  be  Lovers  —  or  at 
least  the  cooling  touch  of  time,  the  ciroiim  prcecordia 
frigus  must  not  have  so  damped  our  faculties,  as  to 
take  away  our  recollection  that  we  were  once  so  — 
before  we  can  duly  appreciate  the  glorious  vanities,  and 
graceful  hyperboles,  of  the  passion.  The  images  wliich 
lie  before  our  feet  (though  by  some  accounted  the  only 
natural)  are  least  natural  for  the  high  Sydnean  love  to 
express  its  fancies  by.  They  may  serve  for  the  loves 
of  Tibullus,  or  the  dear  Author  of  the  Schoolmistress ; 
for  passions  that  creep  and  whine  in  Elegies  and  Pas- 
toral Ballads.  I  am  sure  Milton  never  loved  at  this 
rate.  I  am  afraid  some  of  his  addresses  (acZ  Leonoram 
I  mean)  have  rather  erred  on  the  farther  side ;  and 
that  the  poet  came  not  much  short  of  a  religious 
mdecorum,  when  he  could  thus  apostrophize  a  singing- 
girl :  — 

Angelus  unicuique  suus  (sic  credite  gentes) 

Obtigit  aetliereis  ales  ab  ordinibus. 
Quid  mirum,  Leonora,  tibi  si  gloria  major, 

Nam  tua  prsesentem  vox  sonat  ipsa  Deum  V 
Ant  Deus,  aut  vacui  cert6  mens  tertia  coeli. 


356  SIR  PHILIP   SYDNEY'S   SONNETS. 

Per  tua  secretb  guttura  serpit  agens ; 
Serpit  agens,  facilisque  docet  mortalia  corda 

Sensim  iminortali  assuescere  posse  sono. 
Quod  si  cuncta  quidem  Deus  est,  per  cunctaque  fdsob, 
In  te  una  loquitur,  c^etera  mutus  habet. 

This  is  loving  in  a  strange  fashion ;  and  it  requires 
some  candor  of  construction  (besides  the  sHght  darken- 
ing of  a  dead  language)  to  cast  a  veil  over  the  ugly 
appearance  of  something  very  like  blasphemy  in  the  last 
two  verses.  I  tliink  the  Lover  would  have  been  stag- 
gered, if  he  had  gone  about  to  express  the  same  thought 
in  English.  I  am  sure  Sidney  has  no  flights  like  this. 
His  extravaganzas  do  not  strike  at  the  sky,  though  he 
takes  leave  to  adopt  the  pale  Dian  into  a  fellowship 
with  his  mortal  passions. 


With  how  sad  steps,  0  Moon,  thou  climb'st  the  skies; 

How  silently ;  and  with  how  wan  a  face ! 

What !  may  it  be,  that  even  iu  heavenly  pla'ie 

That  busy  Archer  his  sharp  arrows  tries  ? 

Sure,  if  that  long-with-love-acquainted  ej'es 

Can  judge  of  love,  thou  feel'st  a  lover's  case; 

I  read  it  in  thy  looks ;  thy  lauguisht  grace 

To  me,  that  feel  the  like,  thy  state  descries. 

Then,  even  of  fellowship,  0  Moon,  tell  me, 

Is  constant  love  deem'd  there  but  want  of  wit? 

Are  beauties  there  as  proud  as  here  they  be? 

Do  they  above  love  to  be  loved,  and  yet 

Those  lovers  scorn,  whom  that  love  doth  possess? 

Do  they  call  virtue  there  —  ungratefulness  ! 

The  last  line  of  this  poem  is  a  little  obscured  by 
transposition.  He  means,  Do  they  call  ungrateflibiesa 
there  a  virtue  ? 


Come,  Sleep,  0  Sleep,  the  certam  knot  of  peace, 
The  baiting  place  of  wit,  the  balm  of  woe, 


SIK   I'HILIP   SYDNEY'S   SONNETS.  357 

The  poor  man's  wealth,  the  prisoner's  release, 
The  indifferent  judge  between  the  high  and  low; 
With  shield  of  proof  shield  me  from  out  the  prease  ' 
Of  those  fierce  darts  despair  at  me  doth  throw; 

0  make  in  me  those  civil  wars  to  cease : 

1  will  good  tribute  pay,  if  thou  do  so. 

Take  thou  of  me  sweet  pillows,  sweetest  bed 
A  chamber  deaf  to  noise,  and  blind  to  light; 
A  rosy  garland,  and  a  weary  head. 
And  if  these  things,  as  being  thine  by  right, 
Move  not  they  heavy  grace,  thou  shalt  in  me, 
Livelier  than  elsewhere,  Stella's  image  see. 


The  curious  wits,  seeing  dull  pensiveness 
Bewray  itself  in  my  long-settled  eyes, 
Whence  those  same  fumes  of  melancholy  rise, 
With  idle  pains,  and  missing  aim,  do  guess. 
Some,  that  know  how  my  spring  I  did  address, 
Deem  that  my  Muse  some  fruit  of  knowledge  pliea 
Others,  because  the  Prince  my  service  tries. 
Think,  that  I  think  state  errors  to  redress ; 
But  harder  judges  judge,  ambition's  rage, 
Scourge  of  itself,  still  climbing  slippery  place, 
Holds  my  young  brain  captived  in  golden  cage. 
0  fools,  or  overwise!  aliis,  th«  race 
Of  all  my  thoughts  hath  neither  stop  nor  start. 
But  only  Stella's  eyes,  and  Stella's  heart. 


Because  I  oft  in  dark  abstracted  guise 
Seem  most  alone  in  greatest  company. 
With  dearth  of  words  or  answers  quite  awry 
To  them  that  would  make  speech  of  speech  arise; 
They  deem,  and  of  their  doom  the  rumor  flies. 
That  poison  foul  of  bubbling  Pride  doth  lie 
So  in  my  swelling  brsast,  that  only  I 
Fawn  on  myself,  and  others  do  despise; 
Yet  Pride,  I  think,  doth  not  my  soul  possess 
Which  looks  ton  oft  in  his  unflattering  ghiss; 
But  one  worse  fault  —  Ambition  —  I  confess. 
That  makes  me  oft  my  best  friends  overpass. 
Unseen,  unheard—  while  Thought  to  highest  plac« 
Bends  all  his  powers,  even  unto  Stella's  grace. 

*  Pres» 


558  SIR  PHILIP   SYDNEY'S   SCNNETS. 


Having  this  day,  my  horse,  iiiy  hand,  my  lance, 
Guided  so  well  that  I  obtained  the  prize, 
Both  by  the  judgment  of  the  English  eyes, 
And  of  some  sent  from  that  sweet  enemy,  —  France  • 
Horsemen  my  skill  in  horsemanship  advance; 
Townsfolk  my  strength;  a  daintier  judge  applies 
His  praise  to  slight,  wliich  from  good  use  doth  rise; 
Some  lucky  wits  impute  it  but  to  chance; 
Others,  because  of  both  sides  I  do  take 
My  blood  from  them,  who  did  excel  in  this, 
Think  Nature  me  a  man  of  arips  did  make. 
How  far  they  shot  awry !  the  true  cause  is, 
Stella  looked  on,  and  from  her  heavenly  face 
Sent  forth  the  beams  which  made  so  fair  my  race. 


In  martial  sports  I  had  my  cunning  tried, 

And  yet  to  break  more  staves  did  me  address, 

While  with  the  people's  shouts  (I  must  confess) 

Youth,  luck,  and  praise,  even  fill'd  my  veins  with  pride  • 

When  Cupid  having  me  (his  slave)  descried 

In  Mars's  livery,  prancing  in  the  press, 

"  What  now.  Sir  Fool !  "  said  he:  "  I  would  no  less; 

Look  here,  I  say."     I  look'd,  and  Stella  spied. 

Who  hard  by  made  a  window  send  forth  light. 

My  heart  then  quaked,  then  dazzled  were  mine  eyes, 

One  hand  forgot  to  rule,  th'  other  to  fight; 

Nor  trumpet's  sound  I  heard,  nor  friendly  cries. 

My  foe  came  on,  and  beat  the  air  for  me  — 

Till  that  her  blush  made  me  my  shame  to  see. 


No  more,  my  dear,  no  more  these  counsels  try ; 

0  give  my  passions  leave  to  run  their  race ; 
Let  Fortune  laj'  on  me  her  worst  disgrace; 

Let  folk  o'ercharged  with  brain  against  me  cry; 
Let  clouds  bedim  my  face,  break  in  mine  eye* 
Let  me  no  steps,  but  of  lost  labor,  trace ; 
Let  all  the  earth  with  scorn  recount  my  case, — 
But  do  not  will  me  from  my  love  to  fly. 

1  do  not  envy  Aristotle's  wit. 

Nor  do  aspire  to  Caesar's  bleeding  fame; 

Nor  aught  do  care,  though  some  above  me  sit: 

Nor  hope,  nor  wish,  another  course  to  frame, 


SIR  PHILIP   SYDNEY'S   SONNETS.  359 

But  that  which  once  may  svin  thy  cruel  heart 
Thou  art  ray  wit,  and  thoa  my  virtue  art. 


Love  still  a  boy,  and  oft  a  wanton,  is, 

School'd  only  by  his  mother's  tender  eye; 

What  wander  then,  if  he  his  lesson  miss, 

When  for  so  soft  a  rod  dear  play  he  try  ? 

And  yet  my  Star,  because  a  siigar'd  kiss 

In  sport  I  suck'd,  while  she  asleep  did  lie, 

Doth  lour,  nay  chide,  nay  threat,  for  only  this. 

Sweet,  it  was  saucy  Love,  not  humble  I. 

But  no  'scuse  serves;  she  makes  her  wrath  appear 

In  beauty's  throne,  —  see  now  who  dares  come  near. 

Those  scarlet  judges,  threat'ning  bloody  pain"? 

0  heav'nly  Fool,  thy  most  kiss-worthy  face 

Anger  invests  with  such  a  lovely  grace. 

That  anger's  self  I  needs  must  kiss  again. 


I  never  drank  of  Aganippe  well. 

Nor  ever  did  in  shade  of  Tempe  sit. 

And  JIuses  scorn  with  vulgar  brains  to  dwell; 

Poor  layman  I,  for  sacred  rites  unfit. 

Some  do  I  hear  of  Poet's  fury  tell. 

But  (God  wot)  wot  not  what  they  mean  by  it; 

And  this  1  swear  by  blackest  brook  of  hell, 

I  am  no  pick-purse  of  another's  wit. 

How  falls  it  then,  that  with  so  smooth  an  ease 

My  thoughts  I  speak,  and  what  I  speak  doth  flow 

In  verse,  and  that  my  verse  best  wits  doth  please? 

Guess  me  the  cause  —  what  is  it  thus  ?  —  fye,  no. 

Or  soV  —  much  less.     How  thcnV  sure  thus  it  is, 

My  lips  are  sweet,  inspired  with  Stella's  kiss. 


Of  all  the  kings  that  ever  here  did  reign, 
Edward,  named  Fourth,  as  first  in  praise  I  name. 
Not  fcT  his  fair  outside,  nor  well-lined  brain,  — 
Although  less  gifts  imp  feathers  oft  on  Fame. 
Nor  that  he  could,  young-wise,  wise-valiant,  frame 
His  sire's  revenge,  join'd  with  a  kingdom's  gain; 
And,  gain'd  by  JIars  could  yet  mad  Mars  so  tame, 
That  Balance  weigh'd  what  Sword  did  late  obtain. 
Noi  that  lie  made  the  Floure-de-luce  so  'fraid. 


560  SIR  PHILIP   SYDNEY'S   SONNETS. 

Though  strongly  hedged  of  bloody  Lions'  paw8. 
That  witty  Lewis  to  him  a  tribute  paid. 
Nor  this,  nor  that,  nor  any  sucli  small  cause,  — 
But  only,  for  this  worthy  knight  durst  prove 
To  lose  his  crown  rather  than  fail  his  love. 


0  happy  Thames,  that  didst  mj'  Stella  bear, 

1  saw  thyself,  with  many  a  smiling  line 
Upon  thy  cheerful  face,  Joy's  livery  wear. 
While  those  fair  planets  on  thy  streams  did  shine , 
The  boat  for  joj-  could  not  to  dance  forbear. 
While  wanton  winds,  with  beauty  so  divine 
Ravish'd,  stay'd  not,  till  in  her  golden  hair 
They  did  themselves  (0  sweetest  prison)  twine. 
And  fain  tliose  jEoI's  youth  there  would  their  staj 
Have  made ;  but  forced  by  nature  still  to  fly, 
First  did  with  puffing  kiss  those  locks  display 
She,  so  dishevell'd,  blush'd;  from  window  I 
With  sight  thereof  cried  out,  0  fair  disgrace, 

Let  honor's  self  to  thee  grant  highest  place! 


Highway,  since  you  my  chief  Parnassus  be; 
And  that  my  JIuse,  to  some  ears  not  unsweet, 
Tempers  her  words  to  trampling  horses'  feet. 
More  soft  than  to  a  chamber  melody ; 
Now  blessed  You  bear  onward  blessed  Me 
To  Her,  where  I  my  heart  safe  left  shall  meet. 
My  Muse  and  I  must  you  of  duty  greet 
With  thanks  and  wishes,  wishing  thankfully, 
Be  you  still  fair,  honor'd  by  public  heed, 
By  no  encroachment  wrong'd,  nor  time  forgot; 
Nor  blamed  for  blood,  nor  siiamed  for  sinful  deed. 
And  that  you  know,  I  envy  you  no  lot 
Of  highest  wish,  1  wish  you  so  much  bliss. 
Hundreds  of  years  you  Stella's  feet  may  kiss. 

Of  the  foregoing,  the  first,  the  second,  and  tlie  last 
sonnet,  are  my  favorites.  But  the  general  beauty  of 
them  all  is,  that  they  are  so  perfectly  characteristical. 
The  spirit  of  "learning  and  of  chivalry,"  — of  which 
union,  Spenser  has  entitled  Sydney  to  have  been  the 


SIR  PHILIP    SYDNEY'S   SONNETS.  361 

•*  piesident,"  —  shines  through  them.  I  confess  I  can 
see  nothing  of  the  "jejune"  or  "frigid"  in  them; 
much  less  of  the  "stiff"  and  "cumbrous,"  —  Avhich  I 
have  sometimes  heard  objected  to  the  Arcadia.  The 
verse  runs  off  swiftly  and  gallantly.  It  might  have 
been  tuned  to  the  trumpet ;  or  tempered  (as  him- 
self expresses  it)  to  "  trampling  horses'  feet."  They 
abound  in  felicitous  phrases,  — 

0  heav'nly  Fool,  thy  most  kiss-worthy  face  — 

Hth  Sonnet. 
Sweet  pillows,  sweetest  bed; 
A  chamber  deaf  to  noise,  and  blind  to  light; 
A  rosy  garland,  and  a  weary  head. 

2d  Sonnei. 
That  sweet  enemy,  —  France  — 

bth  Sonnet. 

But  they  are  not  rich  in  words  only  in  vague  and 
unlocalized  feelings,  —  the  failing  too  much  of  some 
poetry  of  the  present  day,  —  they  are  full,  material,  and 
circumstantiated.  Time  and  place  appropriates  every 
one  of  them.  It  is  not  a  fever  of  passion  wasting  itself 
upon  a  thin  diet  of  dainty  words,  but  a  transcendent 
passion  pervading  and  illuminating  action,  pursuits, 
studies,  feats  of  arms,  the  opinions  of  contemporariej 
and  his  judgment  of  them.  An  historical  thread  rum 
through  them,  which  almost  affixes  a  date  to  them 
marks  the  when  and  where  they  were  written. 

I  have  dwelt  the  longer  upon  what  I  conceive  the 
merit  of  these  poems,  because  I  have  been  hurt  by  the 
wantonness  (I  wish  I  could  treat  it  by  a  gentler  name} 
with  which  W.  H.  takes  every  occasion  of  insulting  the 
memory  of  Sir  Phihp  Sydney.  But  the  decisions  of 
the  Author  of  Table  Talk,  &c.,  (most  profound  and 
subtle  where  they  are,  as  for  the  most  part,  just,)   arc 


362  SIR  PinUP   SYDNEY'S   SONNETS. 

more  safely  to  be  relied  upon,  on  subjects  and  authors 
he  has  a  partiality  for,  than  on  such  as  he  has  con- 
ceived an  accidental  prejudice  against.  Milton  wrote 
Sonnets,  and  was  a  king-hater  ;  and  it  was  congenial 
perhaps  to  sacrifice  a  courtier  to  a  patriot.  But  I  was 
unwilling  to  lose  a  fine  idea  from  my  mind.  The  noble 
images,  passions,  sentiments,  and  poetical  delicacies  of 
character,  scattered  all  over  the  Arcadia,  (spite  of  some 
stiffness  and  encumberment,)  justify  to  me  the  char- 
acter which  his  contemporaries  have  left  us  of  the 
writer.  I  cannot  think  with  the  Critic,  that  Sir  Philip 
Sydney  was  that  opprobrious  thing  which  a  foolish 
nobleman  in  his  insolent  hostility  chose  to  term  him. 
I  call  to  mind  the  epitaph  made  on  him,  to  guide 
me  to  juster  thoughts  of  him  ;  and  I  repose  upon 
the  beautiful  lines  in  the  "  Friend's  Passion  for  his 
Astrophel,"  printed  with  the  Elegies  of  Spenser  and 
others. 


Yon  knew—  who  knew  not  Astrophel?  - 
(That  I  should  live  to  say  1  knew, 
And  have  not  in  possession  still!)  — 
Things  known  permit  me  to  renew  — 
Of  him  you  know  his  merit  such, 
I  cannot  say  —  you  hear  —  too  much. 

Within  these  woods  of  Arcady 

He  chief  delight  and  pleasure  took; 

And  on  the  mountain  Partheny, 

Upon  the  crystal  liquid  brook. 
The  Muses  met  him  every  day, 
That  taught  him  sing,  to  write,  and  say. 

When  he  descended  down  the  mount, 
His  personnge  seemed  most  divine: 
A  thousand  gi-aces  one  might  count 
Upon  his  lovely  cheerful  eyne. 
To  hear  him  speak,  and  sweetly  smile, 
You  were  in  Paradise  the  while. 


NEWSPAPERS  THIRTY-FIVE  YEARS  AGO.  363 

A  sweet  attractive  kind  of  grace  ; 
A  full  assurance  given  by  looks  ; 
Continual  comfort  in  a  face, 
The  lineaments  of  Gospel  books  — 

I  trow  that  count'nance  cannot  lye, 

Whose  thoughts  are  legible  in  the  eye. 


Above  all  others  this  is  he, 
Which  erst  approved  in  his  song, 
That  love  and  honor  might  agree, 
And  that  pure  love  will  do  no  wrong. 

Sweet  saints,  it  is  no  sin  or  blame 

.  To  love  a  man  of  virtuous  name. 

Did  never  love  so  sweetly  breathe 
In  any  mortal  breast  before : 
Did  never  Muse  inspire  beneath 
A  Poet's  brain  with  finer  store. 

He  wrote  of  Love  with  high  conceit, 

And  Beauty  rear'd  above  her  height. 

Or  let  any  one  read  the  deeper  sorrows  (grief  run 
ning  into  rage)  in  the  Poem,  —  the  last  in  the  collec- 
tion accompanying  the  above,  —  which  from  internal 
testimony  I  believe  to  be  Lord  Brooke's,  —  beginning 
with  "Silence  augmenteth  grief,"  —  and  then  seriously 
ask  himself,  whether  the  subject  of  such  absorbing  and 
confounding  regrets  could  have  been  that  thing  which 
Lord  Oxford  termed  him. 


JVEWSPAPERS  THIRTY-FIVE  YEARS  AGO. 

Dan  Stuart  once  told  us,  that  he  did  not  remember 
that  he  ever  deliberately  walked  into  the  Exhibition  at 


364  NEWSPAPERS   THIRTY-FIVE   YEARS   AGO. 

Somerset  House  in  liis  life.  He  iniglit  occasionally 
have  escorted  a  party  of  ladies  across  the  way  that 
were  going  in  ;  but  he  never  went  in  of  his  own  head. 
Yet  the  office  of  The  Morning  Post  newspaper  stood 
then  just  where  it  does  now,  —  we  are  carrying  you 
back,  Reader,  some  thirty  years  or  more,  —  with  its 
gilt-globe-topt  front  facing  that  emporium  of  our  ar- 
tists' grand  Annual  Exposure.  We  sometimes  wish 
that  we  had  observed  the  same  abstinence  with  Daniel. 

A  word  or  two  of  D.  S.  He  ever  appeared  to  us 
one  of  the  finest-tempered  of  Editors.  Perry,  of  The 
Moniing  Chronicle,  was  equally  pleasant,  with  a  dash, 
no  slight  one  either,  of  the  courtier.  S.  was  frank, 
plain,  and  English  all  over.  We  have  worked  for  both 
these  gentlemen. 

It  is  soothing  to  contemplate  the  head  of  the  Ganges ; 
to  trace  the  first  little  bubblings  of  a  mighty  river, 

With  holy  reverence  to  approach  the  rocks, 
Whence  glide  the  streams  renowned  in  ancient  song. 

Fired  with  a  peinisal  of  the  Abyssinian  Pilgrim's 
exploratory  ramblings  after  the  cradle  of  the  infant 
Nilus,  we  well  remember  on  one  fine  summer  holiday 
(a  "whole  day's  leave"  we  called  it  at  Christ's  Hos- 
pital) sallying  forth  at  rise  of  sun,  not  very  well  pro- 
visioned either  for  such  an  undertaking,  to  trace  the 
current  of  the  New  River  —  Middletonian  stream  !  — 
to  its  scaturient  source,  as  we  had  read,  in  meadows  by 
fair  Amwell.  Gallantly  did  we  commence  our  solitary 
quest,  —  for  it  was  essential  to  the  dignity  of  a  Discov- 
ery, that  no  eye  of  schoolboy,  save  our  own,  should 
beam  on  the  detection.  By  flowery  spots,  and  verdant 
ianes  skirtino-  Hornsoy,  Hope  trained  us  on  in  many  a 


NEWSPAPERS   THIRTY-FIVE   \  EARS   AGO.  365 

baffling  turn;  endless,  hopeless  meanders,  as  it  seemed; 
or  as  if'  the  jealous  waters  had  dodged  us,  reluctant  to 
have  the  humble  spot  of  their  nativity  revealed  ;  till 
spent,  and  nigh  famished,  before  set  of  the  same  sun, 
we  sat  down  somewhere  by  Bowes  Farm  near  Totten- 
ham, with  a  tithe  of  our  proposed  labors  only  yet 
accomplished ;  sorely  convinced  in  spirit,  that  that 
Brucian  enteqw'ise  was  as  yet  too  arduous  for  our 
young  shoulders. 

Not  more  reft-eshing  to  the  thirsty  curiosity  of  the 
traveller  is  the  tracing  of  some  mighty  waters  up  to 
their  shallow  fontlet,  than  it  is  to  a  pleased  and  candid 
reader  to  go  back  to  the  inexperienced  essays,  the  first 
callow  flights  in  authorship,  of  some  established  name 
in  literature ;  from  the  Gnat  which  preluded  to  the 
^neid,  to  the  Duck  which  Samuel  Johnson  trod  on. 

In  those  days  every  Morning  Paper,  as  an  essential 
retainer  to  its  establishment,  kept  an  author,  who  was 
bound  to  furnish  daily  a  quantum  of  witty  paragraphs. 
Sixpence  a  joke  —  and  it  was  thought  pretty  high  too 
-  was  Dan  Stuart's  settled  remuneration  in  these 
cases.  The  chat  of  the  day,  scandal,  but,  above  all, 
dress,  furnished  the  material.  The  length  of  no  pai'a- 
graph  was  to  exceed  seven  lines.  Shorter  they  might 
be,  but  they  mvist  be  poignant. 

A  fashion  of  j^esA,  or  rather  pink-co\ovcdi  hose  for  the 
ladies,  luckily  coming  up  at  the  juncture  when  we  were 
on  our  probation  for  the  place  of  Chief  Jester  to  S.'s 
Paper,  established  our  reputation  in  that  line.  We 
were  pronounced  a  "  capital  hand."  O  the  conceits 
which  we  varied  upon  red  in  all  its  prismatic  differ- 
ences !  from  the  trite  and  obvious  flower  of  Cytherea, 
to  the  flaming  costume  of  the  lady  that  has  her  sitting 


3GQ  NEWSPAPERS   THIRTY-FIVE   YEARS   AGO. 

upon  *•'  many  waters."  Then  there  was  the  collateral 
topic  of  ankles.  What  an  occasion  to  a  truly  chaste 
writer,  like  ourself,  of  touching  that  nice  brink,  and  yet 
never  tumbling  over  it,  of  a  seemingly  ever  approx- 
imating something  "  not  quite  proper ; "  while,  like  a 
skilful  posture-master,  balancing  betwixt  decorums  and 
their  opposites,  he  keeps  the  line,  from  which  a  hair's 
breadth  deviation  is  destruction ;  hovering  in  the  con- 
fines of  light  and  darkness,  or  where  "  both  seem 
either ;  "  a  hazy  uncertain  delicacy ;  Autolycus-like 
in  the  Play,  still  putting  off  his  expectant  auditory  with 
"  Whoop,  do  me  no  harm,  good  man  !  "  But  above 
all,  that  conceit  arrided  us  most  at  that  time,  and  still 
tickles  our  midriff  to  remember,  where,  allusively  to 
the  flight  of  AstrjEa  —  ultima  Ccelestum  terras  reliquit 
—  we  pronounced  —  in  reference  to  the  stockings  still 
—  that  Modesty,  taking  her  final  leave  of  mor- 
tals, HER  LAST  Blush  was  visible  in  her  ascent  tc 
THE  Heavens  by  the  tract  of  the  glowing  instep. 
This  might  be  called  the  crowning  conceit ;  and  was 
esteemed  tolerable  writing  in  those  days. 

But  the  fashion  of  jokes,  with  all  other  things,  passes 
away ;  as  did  the  transient  mode  which  had  so  favored 
us.  The  ankles  of  our  fair  friends  in  a  few  weeks  be- 
gan to  reassume  their  whiteness,  and  left  us  scarce  a  leg 
to  stand  upon.  Other  female  whims  followed,  but  none 
methought  so  pregnant,  so  invitatoiy  of  shrewd  con- 
ceits, and  more  than  single  meanings. 

Somebody  has  said,  that  to  swallow  six  crossbuns 
daily,  consecutively  for  a  fortnight,  would  surfeit  the 
stoutest  digestion.  But  to  have  to  furnish  as  many 
jokes  daily,  and  that  not  for  a  fortnight,  but  for  a  long 
twelvemonth,  as  we  were  t^onstrained  to  do,  was  a  little 


NEWSPAPERS   THIRTY-FIVE   YEARS  AGO.  367 

harder  exaction.  "  Man  goeth  forth  to  liis  work  until 
the  evening,"  —  from  a  reasonable  hour  in  the  morn- 
ing, we  presume  it  was  meant.  Now,  as  our  main  oc- 
cupation took  us  up  from  eight  till  five  every  day  in  the 
City ;  and  as  our  evening  hours,  at  that  time  of  life, 
had  generally  to  do  with  anything  rather  than  business, 
it  follows,  th*t  the  only  time  we  could  spare  for  this 
manufactory  of  jokes  —  our  supplementary  livelihood, 
that  supplied  us  in  every  want  beyond  mere  bread  and 
cheese  —  was  exactly  that  part  of  the  day  which  (as 
we  have  heard  of  No  Man's  Land)  may  be  fitly  de- 
nominated No  Man's  Time  ;  that  is,  no  time  in  which 
a  man  ought  to  be  up,  and  awake,  in.  To  speak  more 
plainly,  it  is  that  time  of  an  hour,  or  an  hour  and  a 
half's  duration,  in  which  a  man,  whose  occasions  call 
him  up  so  preposterously,  has  to  wait  for  his  break- 
fast. 

O  those  headaches  at  dawn  of  day,  when  at  five,  or 
half-past  five  in  summer,  and  not  much  later  in  the 
dark  seasons,  we  were  compelled  to  rise,  having  been 
perhaps  not  above  four  hours  in  bed, —  (for  we  were  no 
go-to-beds  with  the  lamb,  though  we  anticipated  the 
lark  ofttimes  in  her  rising,  —  we  like  a  parting  cup  at 
midnight,  as  all  young  men  did  before  these  effeminate 
times,  and  to  have  our  friends  about  us,  —  we  were  not 
constellated  under  Aquarius,  that  watery  sign,  and 
therefore  incapable  of  Bacchus,  cold,  washy,  bloodless, 
—  we  were  none  of  your  Basilian  water-sponges,  nor 
had  taken  our  degrees  at  Mount  Ao;ue,  —  we  were  right 
toping  Capulets,  jolly  companions,  we  and  they,)  —  but 
to  have  to  get  up,  as  we  said  before,  curtailed  of  half 
our  fair  sleep,  fasting,  with  oidy  a  dim  vista  of  refresh- 
ing bohca,  in  the  distance,  —  to  be  necessitated  to  rouse 


368  NEWSPAPKKS   THIRTY-FIVK    YEARS   AGO. 

ourselves  at  the  detestable  rap  of  an  old  hag  of  a  domes- 
tic, "vvho  seemed  to  take  a  diabolical  pleasure  in  her 
announcement  that  it  was  "  time  to  rise ;  "  and  whose 
chappy  knuckles  we  have  often  yearned  to  amputate, 
and  string  them  up  at  our  chamber-door,  to  be  a  terror 

to  all  such  unseasonable  rest-breakers  in  future 

"  Facil  "  and  sweet,  as  Virgil  sings,  had  been  the 
"  descending  "  of  the  overnight,  balmy  the  first  sink- 
ing of  the  heavy  head  upon  the  pillow ;  but  to  get 
up,  as  he  goes  on  to  say, 

revocare  gradus,  superasque  evadere  ad  auras 

and  to  get  up  moreover  to  make  jokes  with  malice  pre- 
pended,  —  there  was  the  "  labor,"  there  the  "  work." 

No  Egyptian  taskmaster  ever  devised  a  slavery  like 
to  that,  our  slavery.  No  fi'actious  operants  ever  turned 
out  for  half  the  tyranny  which  this  necessity  exercised 
upon  us.  Half  a  dozen  jests  in  a  day,  (bating  Sundays 
too,)  why,  it  seems  nothing  !  We  make  twice  the 
number  every  day  in  our  lives  as  a  matter  of  course, 
and  claim  no  Sabbatical  exemptions.  But  then  they 
come  into  our  head.  But  when  the  head  has  to  go  out 
to  them,  —  when  the  mountain  must  go  to  Mahomet,  — 

Reader,  try  it  for  once,  only  for  one  short  twelve- 
month. 

It  was  not  every  week  that  a  fashion  of  pink  stock- 
ings came  up  ;  but  mostly,  instead  of  it,  some  rugged, 
untractable  subject ;  some  topic  impossible  to  be  con- 
torted into  the  risible ;  some  feature,  upon  which  no 
smile  could  play  ;  some  flint,  from  which  no  process 
of  ingenuity  could  procure  a  scintillation.  There  they 
lay ;  there  your  appointed  tale  of  brick-making  was  set 
before  you,   which  you  must  finish,  with  or  without 


NEWSPAPERS   THIRTY-FIVE   YEARS  AGO.  369 

straw,  as  it  happened.  The  craving  Dragon,  —  the 
Public^  —  like  him  in  Bel's  temple,  —  must  be  fed  ;  it 
expected  its  daily  rations ;  and  Daniel,  and  ourselves, 
to  do  us  justice,  did  the  best  we  could  on  this  side 
bursting  him. 

While  we  were  wringing  out  coy  sprightlinesses  foi 
The  Post,  and  writhing  under  the  toil  of  what  is  called 
"  easy  writing,"  Bob  Allen,  our  quondam  schoolfellow, 
was  tapping  his  impracticable  brains  in  a  like  service 
for  the  "  Oracle."  Not  that  Robert  troubled  himself 
much  about  wit.  If  his  paragraphs  had  a  sprightly  air 
about  them,  it  Avas  sufficient.  He  carried  this  noncha- 
lance so  far  at  last,  that  a  matter  of  intelligence,  and 
that  no  very  important  one,  was  not  seldom  palmed 
upon  his  employers  for  a  good  jest ;  for  example  sake,  — 
"  Walking  yesterday  morning  casually  doivn  Stioiv  Hill, 
who  should  we  meet  hut  Mr.  Deputy  Humphreys  !  we  re- 
joice to  add,  that  the  ivorthy  Deputy  appeared  to  enjoy  a 
good  state  of  health.  We  do  not  ever  remember  to  have 
seen  him  look  better J'^  This  gentleman  so  surprisingly 
met  upon  Snow  Hill,  from  some  peculiarities  in  gait  or 
gesture,  was  a  constant  butt  for  mirth  to  the  small 
paragraph-mongers  of  the  day ;  and  our  friend  thought 
that  he  might  have  his  fling  at  him  with  the  rest.  We 
met  A.  in  Holborn  shortly  after  this  extraordinary  ren- 
counter, which  he  told  with  tears  of  satisfaction  in  his 
eyes,  and  chuckling  at  the  anticipated  effects  of  its  an- 
nouncement next  day  in  the  paper.  We  did  not  quite 
comprehend  where  the  wit  of  it  lay  at  the  time  ;  nor 
was  it  easy  to  be  detected,  Avhen  the  thing  came  out 
advantaged  by  type  and  letter-press.  He  had  better 
have  met  anything  that  morning  than  a  Common 
Councilman.       His    services    were    shortly    afler    dis- 

VUL.    HI.  24 


370  NEWSPAPERS   THIRTY-FIVE    YEARS   AGO. 

pensed  with,  on  the  plea  that  his  paragraphs  of  late 
had  been  deficient  in  point.  The  one  in  question,  it 
must  be  owned,  had  an  air,  in  the  opening  especially, 
proper  to  awaken  curiosity ;  and  the  sentiment,  or 
moral,  wears  the  aspect  of  humanity  and  good  neigh- 
borly feeling.  But  somehow  the  conclusion  was  not 
judged  altogether  to  answer  to  the  magnificent  promise 
of  the  premises.  We  traced  our  friend's  pen  after- 
wards in  the  "  True  Briton,"  the  "  Star,"  the  "  Trav- 
eller," —  from  all  which  he  was  successively  dismissed, 
the  Proprietors  having  "  no  further  occasion  for  hia 
services."  Nothing  was  easier  than  to  detect  him. 
When  wit  failed,  or  topics  ran  low,  there  constantly 
appeared  the  following,  —  "  It  is  not  generally  known 
that  the  three  Blue  Balls  at  the  Pawnbrokers''  shops  are 
the  ancient  arms  of  Lonibardy.  Tlie  Lombards  were  the 
first  money-brokers  in  Em'ope.''''  Bob  has  done  more  to 
set  the  public  right  on  this  important  point  of  blazonry, 
than  the  whole  College  of  Heralds. 

The  appointment  of  a  regular  wit  has  long  ceased 
to  be  a  part  of  the  economy  of  a  Morning  Paper. 
Editors  find  their  own  jokes,  or  do  as  well  without 
them.  Parson  Este,  and  Topham,  brought  up  the  set 
custom,  of  "  witty  paragraphs  "  first  in  the  "  World." 
Boaden  was  a  reigning  paragi'aphist  in  his  day,  and 
succeeded  poor  Allen  in  the  "  Oracle."  But,  as  we 
said,  the  fashion  of  jokes  passes  away  ;  and  it  would 
be  difficult  to  discover  in  the  biographer  of  IMra. 
Siddons  any  traces  of  that  vivacity  and  fancy  which 
charmed  the  whole  town  at  the  commencement  of 
the  present  century.  Even  the  prelusive  delicacies  of 
the  present  writer,  —  the  curt  "  Astryean  allusion"  — 
would  be  thought  pedantic  and  out  of  date  in  these  days. 


NEWSPAPERS   THIRTY-FIVE   YEARS   AGO  371 

From  the  office  of  The  Morning  Post,  (for  we  may  as 
well  exhaust  our  Newspaper  Reminiscences  at  once,) 
by  change  of  property  in  the  paper,  we  were  trans- 
ferred, mortifying  exchange  !  to  the  office  of  The  Albion 
Newspaper,  late  Rackstrow's  Museum,  in  Fleet  Street. 
What  a  transition,  —  fi-om  a  handsome  apartment,  from 
rosewood  desks,  and  silver  inkstands,  to  an  office,  —  no 
office,  but  a  den  rather,  but  just  redeemed  from  the 
occupation  of  dead  monsters,  of  which  it  seemed  redo- 
l(int,  —  from  the  centre  of  loyalty  and  fashion,  to  a 
focus  of  vulgarity  and  sedition  !  Here,  in  murky  closet, 
inadequate  from  its  square  contents  to  the  receipt  of  the 
two  bodies  of  Editor  and  humble  paragraph-maker, 
together  at  one  time,  sat,  in  the  discharge  of  his  new 
editorial  functions,  (the  "Bigod"  of  Elia,)  the  re- 
doubted John  Fen  wick. 

F.,  without  a  guinea  in  his  pocket,  and  having  left 
not  many  in  the  pockets  of  his  friends  whom  he  might 
command,  had  purchased  (on  tick  doubtless)  the  whole 
and  sole  Editorship,  Proprietorship,  with  all  the  rights 
and  titles  (such  as  they  were  worth)  of  The  Albion 
from  one  Lovell ;  of  whom  we  knoAv  nothing,  save  that 
he  had  stood  in  the  pillory  for  a  libel  on  the  Prince  of 
"Wales.  With  this  hopeless  concern  —  for  it  had  been 
sinking  ever  since  its  commencement,  and  could  now 
reckon  upon  not  more  than  a  hundred  subscribers  -  -  F. 
resolutely  determined  upon  pulling  down  the  govern- 
ment in  the  first  instance,  and  making  both  our  for- 
tunes by  way  of  corollary.  For  seven  weeks  and  more 
did  this  infatuated  democrat  go  about  borrowing  seven- 
shilling  piec2s,  and  lesser  coin,  to  meet  the  daily  d(i- 
mands  of  the  Stamp-Office,  which  allowed  no  credit  to 
publications  of  that  side  in  politics.     An  outcast  from 


372  NEWSPAPERS   TIIIRTV-FIVE   YEaRS   AGO. 

politer  bread,  we  attached  our  small  talents  to  the  for- 
lorn fortunes  of  our  friend.  Our  occupation  now  waa 
to  write  treason. 

Recollections  of  feelings,  —  which  were  all  that  now 
remained  from  our  first  boyish  heats  kindled  by  the 
French  Revolution,  when,  if  we  were  misled,  we  erred 
in  the  company  of  some  who  are  accounted  veiy  good 
men  now,  —  rather  than  any  tendency  at  this  time  to 
Republican  doctrines,  —  assisted  us  in  assuming  a  style 
of  writing,  while  the  paper  lasted,  consonant  in  no  very 
under-tone,  —  to  the  right  earnest  fanaticism  of  F. 
Our  cue  was  now  to  insinuate,  rather  than  recommend, 
possible  abdications.  Blocks,  axes,  Whitehall  tribunals, 
were  covered  with  flowers  of  so  cunning  a  periphrasis 

—  as  Mr.  Bayes  says,  never  naming  the  tiling  directly 

—  that  the  keen  eye  of  an  Attorney-General  was  insuf- 
ficient to  detect  the  lurking  snake  among  them.  There 
were  times,  indeed,  Avhen  we  sighed  for  our  more  gen- 
tlemanlike occupation  under  Stuart.  But  with  change 
of  masters  it  is  ever  change  of  service.  Already  one 
paragraph,  and  another,  as  we  learned  afterwards  from 
a  gentleman  at  the  Treasury,  had  begun  to  be  marked 
at  that  office,  with  a  view  of  its  being  submitted  at 
least  to  the  attention  of  the  proper  Law  Officers,— 
when  an  unlucky,  or  rather  lucky  epigram  from  our 

pen,  aimed  at  Sir  J s  M h,  who  was  on  the  eve 

of  departing  for  India  to  reap  the  fruits  of  his  apos- 
tacy,  as  F.  pronounced  it,  (it  is  hardly  worth  partic- 
ularizing,) happening  to  offend  the  nice  sense  of  Lord, 
or,  as  he  then  delighted  to  be  called.  Citizen  Stanhope, 
deprived  F.  at  once  of  the  last  hopes  of  a  guinea  from 
the  last  patron  that  had  stuck  by  us  ;  and  breaking  up 
our  establishment,  left  us   to   the  safe,  but   somewhat 


ON  THE   PRODUCTIONS   OK   MODLRN  ART  373 

mortifying,  neglect  of  the  Crown  Lawyers.  It  was 
about  this  time,  or  a  Httle  earlier,  that  Dan  Stuart 
made  that  curious  confession  to  us,  that  he  had  "  never 
deliberately  walked  into  an  Exhibition  at  Somerset 
House  in  his  life." 


BARKENNESS  OF  THE  IMAGINATIVE   FACULTY  LN 
THE   PRODUCTIONS   OF   MODERN  ART. 

Hogarth  excepted,  can  we  produce  any  one  painter 
within  the  last  fifty  years,  or  since  the  humor  of  exhib- 
iting began,  that  has  treated  a  story  iynaginatively  ? 
By  this  we  mean,  upon  whom  his  subject  has  so  acted, 
that  it  has  seemed  to  direct  liim  —  not  to  be  arranged 
by  him  ?  Any  upon  whom  its  leading  or  collateral 
points  have  impressed  themselves  so  tyrannically,  that 
he  dared  not  treat  it  otherwise,  lest  he  should  falsify  a 
revelation  ?  Any  that  has  imparted  to  his  composi- 
tions, not  merely  so  much  truth  as  is  enough  to  convey 
a  story  with  clearness,  but  that  individualizing  prop- 
erty, which  should  keep  the  subject  so  treated  distinct 
in  feature  from  every  other  subject,  however  similar, 
and  to  common  apprehensions  almost  identical ;  so  as 
that  we  might  say,  this  and  this  part  could  have  found 
an  appropriate  place  in  no  other  picture  in  the  world 
but  this  ?  Is  there  anything  in  modem  art  —  we  will 
not  demand  that  it  should  be  equal  —  but  in  any  way 
analogous  to  what  Titian  has  effected,  in  that  wonder- 
ful bringing  together  of  two  times  in  the  "  Ariadne," 
111  the  National  Gallery  ?     Precipitous,  with  his  reeling 


371  ON  THE   PRODUCTIONS   OF   MODERN   ART. 

satyr  rout  about  him,  re-peopling  and  re-illumining  sud- 
denly the  waste  places,  drunk  with  a  new  fury  beyond 
the  grape,  Bacchus,  born  in  fire,  firelike  flings  himself 
at  the  Cretan.  This  is  the  time  present.  With  this 
telling  of  the  story  —  an  artist,  and  no  ordinary  one, 
might  remain  richly  proud.  Guido,  in  his  harmonious 
version  of  it,  saw  no  further.  But  from  the  depths  of 
the  imaginative  spirit  Titian  has  recalled  past  time,  an  i 
laid  it  contributory  Avith  the  present  to  one  simulta- 
ueous  effect.  With  the  desert  all  ringing  with  the 
mad  cymbals  of  his  followers,  made  lucid  with  tlie 
presence  and  new  offers  of  a  god,  —  as  if  unconscious 
of  Bacchus,  or  but  idly  casting  her  eyes  as  upon  some 
unconceming  pageant,  —  her  soul  undistracted  from 
Theseus,  —  Ariadne  is  still  pacing  the  solitary  shore  in 
as  much  heart-silence,  and  in  almost  the  same  local 
solitude,  with  which  she  awoke  at  daybreak  to  catch 
the  forlorn  last  glances  of  the  sail  that  bore  away  the 
Athenian. 

Here  are  two  points  miraculously  co-uniting  ;  fierce 
society,  with  the  feeling  of  solitude  still  absolute ;  noon- 
day revelations,  with  the  accidents  of  the  dull  gray 
dawn  unquenched  and  lingering ;  the  present  Bacchus, 
with  the  past  Ariadne ;  two  stories,  M'ith  double  Time ; 
separate,  and  harmonizing.  Had  the  artist  made  the 
woman  one  shade  less  indifferent  to  the  god ;  still 
more,  had  she  expressed  a  raptvire  at  his  advent,  where 
would  have  been  the  story  of  the  mighty  desolation  of 
the  heart  previous  ?  merged  in  the  insipid  accident  of  a 
flattering  offer  met  with  a  welcome  acceptance.  The 
broken  heart  for  Theseus  was  not  lightly  to  be  pieced 
np  by  a  god. 

We  have  before  us  a  fine  rough  print,  from  a  picture 


ON  THE   PRODUCTIONS   OF   MODERN  ART.  375 

by  Raphael  in  the  Vatican.  It  is  the  Presentation  of 
the  new-bom  Eve  to  Adam  by  the  Almiglity.  A 
fairer  mother  of  mankind  we  might  imagine,  and  a 
goodher  sire  perhaps  of  men  since  born.  But  these 
are  matters  subordinate  to  the  conception  of  the  sitUf 
ation,  displayed  in  this  extraordinary  production.  A 
tolerably  modern  artist  would  have  been  satisfied  with 
tempering  certain  raptui'es  of  connubial  anticipation, 
with  a  suitable  acknowledgment  to  the  Giver  of  the 
blessing,  in  the  countenance  of  the  first  bridegroom , 
something  like  the  divided  attention  of  the  child  (Adam 
was  here  a  child-man)  between  the  given  toy,  and  the 
mother  who  had  just  blest  it  with  the  bauble.  This  is 
the  obvious,  the  first-siglit  view,  the  superficial.  An 
artist  of  a  higher  grade,  considering  the  awful  presence 
they  were  in,  would  have  taken  care  to  subtract  some  ■ 
thing  from  the  expression  of  the  more  human  passion, 
and  to  heighten  the  more  spiritual  one.  This  would 
be  as  much  as  an  exhibition-goer,  from  the  opening  of 
Somerset  House  to  last  year's  show,  has  been  encour- 
aged to  look  for.  It  is  obvious  to  hint  at  a  lower  ex- 
pression yet,  in  a  picture  that,  for  respects  of  drawing 
and  coloring,  might  be  deemed  not  wholly  inadmissible 
within  these  art-fostering  walls,  in  which  the  raptures 
should  be  as  ninety-nine,  tlie  gratitude  as  one,  or  per- 
haps zero !  By  neither  the  one  passion  nor  the  other 
has  Raphael  expounded  the  situation  of  Adam.  Singly 
upon  his  brow  sits  the  absorbing  sense  of  wonder  at  the 
created  miracle.  The  moment  is  seized  by  the  intuitive 
artist,  perhaps  not  self-conscious  of  his  art,  in  which 
neither  of  the  conflicting  emotions  —  a  moment  how 
abstracted  !  —  has  had  time  to  spring  up,  or  to  battle 
for  indecorous  mastery.     We  have  seen  a  lardscape  of 


376  ON  THE  PRODUCTIONS   OF  MODERN  ART. 

a  justly  admired  neoteric,  in  which  he  aimed  at  deUne- 
ating  a  fiction,  one  of  the  most  severely  beautiful  in 
antiquity  —  the   gardens   of  the   Hesperides.      To  do 

Mr. justice,  he  had  painted  a  laudable  orchard, 

with  fitting  seclusion,  and  a  veritable  dragon  (of  whicli 
a  Polypheme,  by  Poussin,  is  somehow  a  fac-simile  for 
tlie  situation),  looking  over  into  the  world  shut  out 
backwards,  so  that  none  but  a  "  still-climbing  Her- 
cules "  could  hope  to  catch  a  peep  at  the  admired 
Ternary  of  Recluses.  No  conventual  porter  could 
keep  his  eyes  better  than  this  custos  with  the  "  lidless 
eyes."  He  not  only  sees  that  none  do  intrude  into  that 
privacy,  but,  as  clear  as  daylight,  that  none  but  Her~ 
cules  aut  Diabolus  by  any  manner  of  means  can.  So 
far  all  is  well.  We  have  absolute  solitude  here  or  no- 
where. Ab  extra  the  damsels  are  snug  enough.  But 
here  the  artist's  courage  seems  to  have  failed  him.  He 
began  to  pity  his  pretty  charge,  and,  to  comfort  the 
irksomeness,  has  peopled  their  solitude  with  a  bevy  of 
fair  attendants,  maids  of  honor,  or  ladies  of  the  bed- 
chamber, according  to  the  approved  etiquette  at  a  court 
of  the  nineteenth  century ;  giving  to  the  whole  scene 
the  air  of  a  fete  cliampetre^  if  we  will  but  excuse  the 
absence  of  the  gentlemen.  This  is  well,  and  Wat- 
teauish.  But  what  is  become  of  the  solitary  mystery,— 
the 

Daughters  three, 
That  sing  around  the  golden  tree  ? 

This  is  not  the  way  in  which  Poussin  would  have 
treated  this  subject. 

The  paintings,  or  rathw  the  stupendous  architectural 
designs,  of  i  modern  artist,  have  been  urged  as  objec- 
tions to  the  theory  of  our  motto.     They  are  of  a  char 


ON  THE  PRODUCTIONS   OF   MODERN  ART.  377 

acter,  we  confess,  to  stagger  it.  His  towered  stmc- 
tures  are  of  the  highest  order  of  the  material  sublime. 
Whether  they  were  dreams,  or  transcripts  of  some  elder 
workmanship,  —  Assyi'ian  ruins  old,  —  restored  by  this 
mighty  artist,  they  satisfy  our  most  stretched  and  crav- 
ing conceptions  of  the  glories  of  the  antique  world.  It 
is  a  pity  that  they  were  ever  peopled.  On  that  side, 
the  imagination  of  the  artist  halts,  and  appears  defec- 
tive. Let  us  examine  the  point  of  the  story  in  the 
"  Belshazzar's  Feast."  We  will  introduce  it  by  an 
apposite  anecdote. 

The  court  historians  of  the  day  record,  that  at  the 
first  dinner  given  by  the  late  King  (then  Prince 
Regent)  at  the  Pavilion,  the  following  characteristic 
fi-olic  was  played  off.  The  guests  were  select  and 
admiring ;  the  banquet  profuse  and  admirable ;  the 
lights  lustrous  and  oriental ;  the  eye  was  perfectly 
dazzled  with  the  display  of  plate,  among  which  the 
great  gold  saltcellar,  brought  from  the  regalia  in  the 
Tower  for  this  especial  purpose,  itself  a  tower  !  stood 
conspicuous  for  its  magnitude.  And  now  the  Rev. 
,  the  then  admired  court  chaplain,  was  proceed- 
ing with  the  grace,  when,  at  a  signal  given,  the  lights 
were  suddenly  overcast,  and  a  huge  transparency  was 
discovered,  in  which  glittered  in  gold  letters  — 

"  Brighton  —  Earthquake  —  Swallow-up- alive  I " 

Imagine  the  confusion  of  the  guests ;  the  Georges  and 
garters,  jewels,  bracelets,  moulted  upon  the  occasion  ! 
The  fans  dropped,  and  picked  up  the  next  morning  by 
the  sly  court  pages !  Mrs.  Fitz-what's-her-name  faint- 
ing, and  the  Countess  of holding  the  smelling- 
bottle,  till  the  good-humored  Prince  caused  harmony  to 


'd78  ON  THE   PRODUCTIONS    OF  MODERN   ART. 

be  restored,  by  calling  in  fresh  candles,  and  declaring 
that  the  whole  was  nothing  but  a  pantomime  hoax,  got 
up  by  the  ingenious  Mr.  Farley,  of  Covent  Garden, 
fi'om  hints  which  his  Royal  Highness  himself  had 
fiu'nished !  Then  imagine  the  infinite  applause  that 
followed,  the  mutual  rallyings,  the  declarations  that 
"  they  were  not  much  frightened,"  of  the  assembled 
galaxy. 

The  point  of  time  in  the  picture  exactly  answers  to 
the  appearance  of  the  transparency  in  the  anecdote. 
The  huddle,  the  flutter,  the  bustle,  the  escape,  the 
alarm,  and  the  mock  alarm ;  the  prettinesses  heightened 
by  consternation ;  the  courtier's  fear,  which  was  flat- 
tery ;  and  the  lady's,  which  was  affectation ;  all  that 
we  may  conceive  to  have  taken  place  in  a  mob  of 
Brighton  courtiers,  sympathizing  with  the  well-acted 
surprise  of  their  sovereign ;  all  this,  and  no  more,  is 
exhibited  by  the  well-dressed  lords  and  ladies  in  the 
Hall  of  Belus.  Just  this  sort  of  consternation  we  have 
seen  among  a  flock  of  disquieted  wild  geese  at  the 
report  only  of  a  gun  having  gone  off"! 

But  is  this  vulgar  fright,  this  mere  animal  anxiety 
for  the  px'eservation  of  their  persons,  —  such  as  we 
have  witnessed  at  a  theatre,  when  a  slight  alarm  of  fire 
has  been  given,  —  an  adequate  exponent  of  a  super- 
natural terror  ?  the  way  in  which  the  finger  of  God, 
writing  judgments,  would  have  been  met  by  the 
withered  conscience?  There  is  a  human  fear,  and  a 
divine  fear.  The  one  is  disturbed,  restless,  and  bent 
upon  escape.  The  other  is  bowed  down,  effortless, 
passive.  When  the  spirit  appeared  before  Eliphaz  in 
the  visions  of  the  night,  and  the  hair  of  his  flesh  stood 
ap,  was  it  in  the  thoughts  of  the  Temanite  to  ring  the 


ON  THE   PRODUCTIONS   OF   iMODERN  ART.  379 

bell  of  his  chamber,  or  to  call  up  the  servants  ?  But 
let  us  see  in  the  text  what  there  is  to  justify  all  this 
huddle  of  vulgar  consternation. 

From  the  words  of  Daniel  it  appears  that  Belshazzar 
had  made  a  great  feast  to  a  thousand  of  his  lords,  and 
drank  wine  before  the  thousand.  The  golden  and 
silver  vessels  are  gorgeously  enumerated,  with  the 
princes,  the  king's  concubines,  and  his  wives.  Then 
follows,  — 

"In  the  same  hour  came  forth  fingers  of  a  man's 
hand,  and  wrote  over  against  the  candlestick  upon  the 
plaster  of  the  wall  of  the  king's  palace  ;  and  the  king 
saw  the  part  of  the  hand  that  wrote.  Then  the  king^s 
countenance  was  changed,  and  his  thoughts  troubled 
him,  so  that  the  joints  of  his  loins  were  loosened,  and 
his  knees  smote  one  against  another." 

This  is  the  plain  text.  By  no  hint  can  it  be  other- 
wise inferred,  but  that  the  appearance  was  solely  con- 
fined to  the  fancy  of  Belshazzar,  that  his  single  brain 
was  troubled.  Not  a  word  is  spoken  of  its  being  seen 
by  any  else  there  present,  not  even  by  the  queen  her- 
self, who  merely  undertakes  for  the  interpretation  of  the 
phenomenon,  as  related  to  her,  doubtless,  by  her  hus- 
band. The  lords  are  simply  said  to  be  astonished ;  i.  e. 
at  the  trouble  and  the  change  of  countenance  in  their 
sovereign.  Even  the  prophet  does  not  appear  to  have 
seen  the  scroll,  which  the  king  saw.  He  recalls  it 
only,  as  Joseph  did  the  Dream  to  the  King  of  Egypt. 
"  Then  was  the  part  of  the  hand  sent  from  him  [the 
Lord],  and  this  writing  was  written."  He  speaks  of 
the  phantasm  as  past. 

Then  wluit  becomes  of  this  needless  multiplication 
of  the   miracle  ?  this  message  to  a  royal  conscience, 


380  ON  THE   PRODUCTIONS   OF   MODERN  ART. 

singly  expressed,  —  for  it  was  said,  "  Thy  kingdor.i  is 
divided,"  —  simultaneously  impressed  upon  the  fancies 
of  a  thousand  courtiers,  who  were  implied  in  it  neither 
directly  nor  grammatically  ? 

But  admitting  the  artist's  own  version  of  the  story, 
and  that  the  sight  was  seen  also  by  the  thousand  cour- 
tiers, —  let  it  have  been  visible  to  all  Babylon,  —  as  the 
knees  of  Belshazzar  were  shaken,  and  his  countenance 
troubled,  even  so  would  the  knees  of  every  man  in 
Babylon,  and  their  countenances,  as  of  an  individual 
man,  have  been  troubled  ;  bowed,  bent  down,  so  would 
they  have  remained,  stupor-fixed,  with  no  thought  of 
struggling  with  that  inevitable  judgment. 

Not  all  that  is  optically  possible  to  be  seen,  is  to  be 
shown  in  every  picture.  The  eye  delightedly  dwells 
upon  the  brilliant  individualities  in  a  "  Marriage  at 
Cana,"  by  Veronese,  or  Titian,  to  the  very  texture 
and  color  of  the  wedding-garments,  the  ring  glittering 
upon  the  bride's  fingers,  the  metal  and  fashion  of  the 
wine-pots;  for  at  such  seasons  there  is  leisure  and 
luxury  to  be  curious.  But  in  a  "  day  of  judgment," 
or  in  a  "  day  of  lesser  horrors,  yet  divine,"  as  at  the 
impious  feast  of  Belshazzar,  the  eye  should  see,  as  the 
actual  eye  of  an  agent  or  patient  in  the  immediate 
scene  would  see,  only  in  masses  and  indistinction.  Not 
only  the  female  attire  and  jewelry  exposed  to  the  criti- 
cal eye  of  fashion,  as  minutely  as  the  dresses  in  a  Lady's 
Magazine,  in  the  criticized  picture,  —  but  perhaps  the 
curiosities  of  anatomical  science,  and  studied  diversities 
of  posture,  in  the  falling  angels  and  sinners  of  Michele 
Angelo,  —  have  no  business  in  their  great  subjects. 
There  was  no  leisure  for  them. 

By  a  wise  falsification,  the  great  masters  of  painting 


ON  THE  PRODUCTIONS  OF  MODERN  ART.     381 

got  at  their  true  conclusions  ;  by  not  showing  the  actual 
appearances,  that  is,  all  that  was  to  be  seen  at  any 
given  moment  by  an  indifferent  eye,  but  only  what  the 
eye  might  be  supposed  to  see  in  the  doing  or  suffering 
of  some  portentous  action.  Suj)pose  the  moment  of  the 
swallowing  up  of  Pompeii.  There  they  were  to  be 
seen,  —  houses,  columns,  architectural  proportions,  dif- 
ferences of  public  and  private  buildings,  men  and 
women  at  their  standing  occupations,  the  diversified 
thousand  postures,  attitudes,  dresses,  in  some  confusion 
truly,  but  physically  they  were  visible.  But  what  eye 
saw  them  at  that  eclipsing  moment,  which  reduces  con- 
fusion to  a  kind  of  unity,  and  when  the  senses  are  up- 
turned from  their  proprieties,  when  sight  and  hearing 
are  a  feeling  only  ?  A  thousand  years  have  passed, 
and  we  are  at  leisure  to  contemplate  the  weaver  fixed 
standing  at  his  shuttle,  the  baker  at  his  oven,  and  to 
turn  over  with  antiquarian  coolness  the  pots  and  pans 
of  Pompeii. 

"  Sun,  stand  thou  still  upon  Gibeon,  and  thou, 
Moon,  in  the  valley  of  Ajalon."  Who,  in  reading 
this  magnificent  Hebraism,  in  his  conception,  sees 
aught  but  the  heroic  son  of  Nun,  with  the  outstretched 
arm,  and  the  greater  and  lesser  light  obsequious  ? 
Doubtless  there  were  to  be  seen  hill  and  dale,  and 
chariots  and  horsemen,  on  open  plain,  or  winding  by 
secret  defiles,  and  all  the  circumstances  and  stratagems 
of  war.  But  whose  eyes  would  have  been  conscious 
of  this  array  at  the  interposition  of  the  synchronic 
miracle?  Yet  in  the  picture  of  this  subject  by  the 
artist  of  the  "  Belshazzar's  Feast "  —  no  ignoble  work 
either  —  the  marshalling  and  landscape  of  the  war  is 
everything,  the  miracle  sinks  into  an  anecdote  of  the 


382  ON  THE  PRODUCTIONS   OF    MODERN   ART. 

day ;  and  the  eye  may  "  dart  through  rank  and  file 
traverse "  for  some  minutes,  before  it  shajl  discover, 
among  his  armed  followers,  which  is  Joshua !  Not 
modern  art  alone,  but  ancient,  where  only  it  is  to  be 
found  if  anywhere,  can  be  detected  erring,  from  defect 
of  this  imaginative  faculty.  The  world  has  nothing  to 
show  of  the  preternatural  in  painting,  transcending  the 
figure  of  Lazarus  bursting  his  grave-clothes,  in  the 
great  picture  at  Angerstein's.  It  seems  a  thing  be- 
tween two  beings.  A  ghastly  horror  at  itself  struggles 
with  newly  apprehending  gratitude  at  second  life  be- 
stowed. It  cannot  forget  that  it  was  a  ghost.  It  has 
hardly  felt  that  it  is  a  body.  It  has  to  tell  of  the 
world  of  spirits.  Was  it  from  a  feeling,  that  the 
crowd  of  half-impassioned  by-standers,  and  the  still 
more  irrelevant  herd  of  passers-by  at  a  distance,  who 
have  not  heard,  or  but  faintly  have  been  told  of  the 
passing  miracle,  admirable  as  they  are  in  design  and 
hue  —  for  it  is  a  glorified  work  —  do  not  respond  ade- 
quately to  the  action  —  that  the  single  figure  of  the 
Lazarus  has  been  attributed  to  Michele  Angelo,  and 
the  mighty  Sebastian  unfairly  robbed  of  the  fame  of 
the  greater  half  of  the  interest?  Now  that  there  were 
not  indifferent  passeu-by  within  actual  scope  of  the 
eyes  of  those  present  at  the  miracle,  to  whom  the  sound 
of  it  had  but  faintly,  or  not  at  all,  reached,  it  would  be 
hardihood  to  deny  ;  but  would  they  see  them  ?  or  can 
the  mind  in  the  conception  of  it  admit  of  svich  uncon- 
ceniing  objects ;  can  it  think  of  them  at  all  ?  or  what 
associatins  leag-ue  to  the  imagination  can  there  be 
between  the  seers,  and  the  seers  not,  of  a  presential 
miracle  ? 

"Were  an  artist  to  paint  upon  demand  a  picture  of  a 


ON  THE  PRODUCTIONS   OF  MODERN  ART.  o^b 

Dryad,  we  will  ask  whether,  in  the  present  low  state 
of  expectation,  the  patron  would  not,  or  ought  not  to 
be  fully  satisfied  with  a  beautiful  naked  figure  recum- 
bent under  wide-stretched  oaks  ?  Disseat  those  woods, 
and  place  the  same  figure  among  fountains,  and  fall  of 
pellucid  water,  and  you  have  a  —  Naiad  !  Not  so  in  a 
rough  print  we  have  seen  after  Julio  Romano,  we  think 
—  for  it  is  long  since  —  there,  by  no  process,  with  mere 
change  of  scene,  could  the  figure  have  reciprocated 
characters.  Long,  grotesque,  fantastic,  yet  with  a 
grace  of  her  own,  beautiful  in  convolution  and  distor- 
tion, linked  to  her  connatural  tree,  co-twisting  with  its 
limbs  her  own,  till  both  seemed  either  —  these,  anima- 
ted branches ;  those,  disanimated  members  —  yet  the 
animal  and  vegetable  lives  sufficiently  kept  distinct,  — 
his  Dryad  lay  —  an  approximation  of  two  natures, 
which  to  conceive,  it  must  be  seen ;  analogous  to,  not 
the  same  with,  the  delicacies  of  O vidian  transforma- 
tions. 

To  the  lowest  subjects,  and,  to  a  superficial  compre* 
hension,  the  most  barren,  the  Great  Masters  gave  lofti- 
ness and  fi'uitfulness.  The  large  eye  of  genius  saw  in 
the  meanness  of  present  objects  their  capabilities  of 
treatment  from  their  relations  to  some  grand  Past  or 
Future.  How  has  Raphael  —  we  must  still  linger  about 
the  Vatican  —  treated  the  humble  craft  of  the  ship- 
builder, in  his  "  Building  of  the  Ark  ?  "  It  is  in  that 
scriptural  series,  to  which  we  have  referred,  and  which, 
judging  fi'om  some  fine  rough  old  graphic  sketches  of 
them  which  we  possess,  seem  to  be  of  a  higher  and 
more  poetic  grade  than  even  the  Cartoons.  The  dim 
of  sight  are  the  timid  and  the  shrinking.  There  is 
a  cowardice  in  modern  art.      As  the   Frenchman,  of 


384  ON    THE  PRODUCTIONS   OF   MODERN  ART. 

whom  Coleridge's  friend  made  the  prophetic  guess  at 
Rome,  fi'om  the  beard  and  horns  of  the  Moses  of 
Micliele  Angelo  collected  no  inferences  beyond  that  of 
a  He  Goat  and  a  Cornuto ;  so  from  this  subject,  ot 
mere  mechanic  promise,  it  would  instinctively  turn 
away,  as  from  one  incapable  of  investiture  with  any 
grandeur.  The  dock-yards  at  Woolwich  would  object 
derogatory  associations.  The  depot  at  Chatham  would 
be  the  mote  and  the  beam  in  its  intellectual  eye.  But 
uot  to  the  nautical  preparations  in  the  ship-yards  of 
Civita  Vecchia  did  Raphael  look  for  instructions,  when 
he  imagined  the  Buildino-  of  the  Vessel  that  was  to  be 
conservatory  of  the  wrecks  of  the  species  of  drowned 
mankind.  In  the  intensity  of  the  action,  he  keeps  ever 
out  of  sight  the  meanness  of  the  operation.  There  is 
the  Patriarch,  in  calm  forethought,  and  with  holy  pre- 
science, giving  directions.  And  there  are  his  agents  — 
the  solitary  but  sufficient  Three  —  hewing,  sawing, 
«jvery  one  with  the  might  and  earnestness  of  a  Demiur- 
fl^us ;  under  some  instinctive  rather  than  technical  guid 
unce!  giant-muscled;  every  one  a  Hercules,  or  liker  to 
those  Vulcanian  Three,  that  in  sounding  caverns  under 
Mongibello  wrought  in  fire, —  Brontes,  and  black  Ster- 
opes,  and  Pyracmon.  So  work  the  workmen  that 
should  repair  a  world  ! 

Artists  again  err  in  the  confounding  of  poetic  with 
pictorial  subjects.  In  the  latter,  the  exterior  accidents 
are  nearly  everything,  the  unseen  qualities  as  nothing. 
Othello's  color,  —  the  infirmities  and  corpulence  of  a 
Sir  John  Falstaff,  —  do  they  haunt  us  perpetually  in 
the  reading?  or  are  they  obtruded  upon  our  concep- 
tions one  time  for  ninety-nine  that  we  are  lost  in 
admimticn  at  the  respective  moral  or  intellectual  at- 


ON  THE  PRODUCTIONS  OF  MODERN  ART.     385 

tributes  of  the  character?  But  in  a  picture  Othello 
is  always  a  Blackamoor  ;  and  the  other  only  Plump 
Jack.  Deeply  corporealized,  and  enchained  hopelessly 
in  the  grovelling  fetters  of  externality,  must  be  the 
mind,  to  which,  in  its  better  moments,  the  image  of 
the  high-souled,  high-intelligenced  Quixote  —  the  er- 
rant Star  of  Knighthood,  made  more  tender  by  eclipse 
—  has  never  presented  itself,  divested  from  the  unhal- 
lo^ved  accompaniment  of  a  Sancho,  or  a  rabblement  at 
the  heels  of  Rosinante.  That  man  has  read  his  book 
by  halves ;  he  has  laughed,  mistaking  his  author's 
purport,  which  was  —  tears.  The  artist  that  pictures 
Quixote  (and  it  is  in  this  degrading  point  that  he  is 
every  season  held.'^p  at  our  Exhibitions)  in  the  shal- 
low hope  of  exciting  mirth,  would  have  joined  the 
rabble  at  the  heels  of  his  starved  steed.  We  wish  not 
to  see  that  counterfeited,  Avhich  we  Avould  not  have 
wished  to  see  in  the  reality.  Conscious  of  the  heroic 
inside  of  the  noble  Quixote,  who,  on  hearing  that  his 
withered  person  was  passing,  would  have  stepped  over 
his  threshold  to  gaze  upon  his  forlorn  habiliments,  and 
the  "  strange  bedfellows  which  misery  brings  a  man 
acquainted  Avith  ?  "  Shade  of  Cervantes !  who  in  thy 
Second  Part  could  put  into  the  mouth  of  thy  Quixote 
those  high  aspirations  of  a  super-chivalrous  gallantry, 
where  he  I'cplies  to  one  of  the  shepherdesses,  apprehen- 
sive that  he  would  spoil  their  pretty  net-works,  and, 
inviting  him  to  be  a  guest  with  them,  in  accents  like 
these :  "  Truly,  fairest  Lady,  Action  was  not  more 
astonished  when  he  saw  Diana  bathing  herself  at  the 
fountain,  than  I  have  been  in  beholding  your  beauty: 
1  commend  the  manner  of  your  pastime,  and  thank 
you  for  your  kind  offers ;  and,  if  I  may  serve  you,  so  I 

VOL.    III.  25 


386  ON  THE   PRODUCTIONS   OF   MODERN  ART. 

may  be  sure  you  will  be  obeyed,  you  may  command 
me ;  for  my  profession  is  this,  To  show  myself  thank- 
ful, and  a  doer  of  good  to  all  sorts  of  people,  especially 
of  the  rank  that  your  person  shows  you  to  be ;  and  if 
those  nets,  as  they  take  up  but  a  little  piece  of  groiuid, 
should  take  up  the  whole  world,  I  would  seek  out  new 
worlds  to  pass  through,  rather  than  break  them  ;  and 
(he  adds)  that  you  may  give  credit  to  this  my  exagger- 
ation, behold  at  least  he  that  promiseth  you  this,  is  Don 
Quixote  de  la  Mancha,  if  haply  this  name  hath  come  to 
your  hearing."  Illustrious  Romancer !  were  the  "  fine 
frenzies,"  which  possessed  the  brain  of  thy  own  Quix- 
ote, a  fit  subject,  as  in  this  Second  Part,  to  be  exposed 
to  the  jeers  of  Duennas  and  Serving  Men  ?  to  be  mon- 
stered,  and  shown  up  at  the  heartless  banquets  of  great 
men  ?  Was  that  pitiable  infirmity,  which  in  thy  First 
Part  misleads  him,  always  from  tvithin,  into  half-ludi- 
crous, but  more  than  half-compassionable  and  admirable 
errors,  not  infliction  enough  from  heaven,  that  men  by 
studied  artifices  must  devise  and  practise  upon  the  hu 
mor,  to  inflame  where  they  should  soothe  it  ?  Why, 
Goneril  would  have  blushed  to  practise  upon  the  abdi- 
cated king  at  this  rate,  and  the  she-wolf  Regan  not 
have  endured  to  play  the  pranks  upon  his  fled  wits, 
which  thou  hast  made  thy  Quixote  suffer  in  Duchesses* 
halls,  and  at  the  hands  of  that  unworthy  nobleman.* 

In  the  First  Adventures,  even,  it  needed  all  the  art 
of  the  most  consummate  artist  in  the  Book  way  that 
the  Avorld  hath  yet  seen,  to  keep  up  in  the  mind  of  the 
reader  the  heroic  attributes  of  the  character  without 
relaxing ;    so    as    absolutely  that  they   shall  suffer  no 

*  Yet  from  this  Second  Part,  our  cried-up  pictures  are  mostly  selected: 
the  waiting- women  with  beards,  &c. 


ON  THE  PKODUCTIONS  OF  MODERN  ART.     387 

alloy  from  the  debasing  fellowsliip  of"  the  clown.  If  it 
ever  obtrudes  itself  as  a  disharmony,  are  we  inclined  to 
laugh  ;  or  not,  rather,  to  indulge  a  contrary  emotion  ? 
—  Cervantes,  stung,  perchance,  by  tlie  relish  with 
which  Ms  Reading  Public  had  received  the  fooleries 
of  the  man,  more  to  their  palates  than  the  generosities 
of  the  master,  in  the  sequel  let  his  pen  run  riot,  lost 
the  harmony  and  the  balance,  and  sacrificed  a  great 
*dea  to  the  taste  of  his  contemporaries.  We  know  that 
in  the  present  day  the  Knight  has  fewer  admirers  than 
the  Squire.  Anticipating,  what  did  actually  happen  to 
him,  —  as  afterwards  it  did  to  his  scarce  inferior  fol- 
lower, the  Author  of  "  Guzman  de  Alfarache,"  —  that 
some  less  knowing  hand  would  prevent  him  by  a 
spurious  Second  Part ;  and  judging  that  it  would  be 
easier  for  his  competitor  to  outbid  him  in  the  comicali- 
ties, than  in  the  romance,  of  his  work,  he  abandoned 
his  Knight,  and  has  fairly  set  up  the  Squire  for  his 
Hero.  For  what  else  has  he  unsealed  the  eyes  of 
Sancho?  and  instead  of  that  twilight  state  of  semi 
insanity  —  the  madness  at  second-hand  —  the  con- 
tagion, caught  from  a  stronger  mind  infected  —  that 
war  between  native  cunning,  and  hereditary  deference, 
with  which  he  has  hitherto  accompanied  his  master,  — 
two  for  a  pair  almost,  —  does  he  substitute  a  downright 
Knave,  with  open  eyes,  for  his  own  ends  only  following 
a  confessed  Madman  ;  and  offering  at  one  time  to  lay, 
if  not  actually  laying,  hands  upon  him  !  From  the 
moment  that  Sancho  loses  his  reverence,  Don  Quixote 
is  become  —  a  treatable  lunatic.  Our  artists  handle 
him  accordingly. 


388  THE  WEDDING. 


THE   WEDDING. 


I  DO  not  know  when  I  have  been  better  pleased 
than  at  being  invited  last  week  to  be  present  at  the 
weddino;  of  a  friend's  daughter.  I  like  to  make  one  at 
these  ceremonies,  which  to  us  old  people  give  back  our 
youth  in  a  manner,  and  restore  our  gayest  season,  in 
the  remembrance  of  our  own  success,  or  the  regi'cts, 
scarcely  less  tender,  of  our  own  youthful  disappoint- 
ments, in  this  point  of  a  settlement.  On  these  occa- 
sions I  am  sure  to  be  in  good-humor  for  a  week  or  two 
after,  and  enjoy  a  reflected  honey-moon.  Being  with- 
out a  family,  I  am  flattered  with  these  temporary  adop- 
tions into  a  friend's  family ;  I  feel  a  sort  of  cousinhood, 
or  uncleship,  for  the  season  ;  I  am  inducted  into  degrees 
of  affinity  ;  and,  in  the  participated  socialities  of  the 
little  community,  I  lay  down  for  a  brief  while  my  soli- 
tary bachelorship.  I  carry  this  humor  so  far,  that  I 
take  it  unkindly  to  be  left  out,  even  when  a  funeral 
is  goins;  on  in  the  house  of  a  dear  friend.  But  to 
my  subject. 

The  union  itself  had  been  long  settled,  but  its  cele- 
bration had  been  hitherto  deferred,  to  an  almost  un- 
I'easonable  state  of  suspense  in  the  lovers,  by  some 
invincible  prejudices  which  the  bride's  father  had  un* 
happily  contracted  upon  the  suljject  of  the  too  early 
marriages  of  females.  He  has  been  lecturing  any  time 
these  five  years  —  for  to  that  length  the  courtship  has 
been  protracted  —  upon  the  propriety  of  putting  off  the 
solemnity,  till  the  lady  should  have  completed  her  five- 
and-twentieth  year.     We  all  began  to  be  afraid  that  a 


THE   WEDDING.  389 

suit,  which  as  yet  had  abated  of  none  of  its  ardors, 
might  at  last  be  Hngered  on,  till  passion  had  time  to 
cool,  and  love  go  out  in  the  experiment.  But  a  little 
wheedling  on  the  part  of  his  wife,  who  was  by  no 
means  a  party  to  these  overstrained  notions,  joined  to 
some  serious  expostulations  on  that  of  his  friends,  who, 
from  the  growing  infirmities  of  the  old  gentleman, 
could  not  promise  ourselves  many  years'  enjoyment  of 
his  company,  and  were  anxious  to  bring  matters  to  a 
conclusion  during  his  lifetime,  at  length  prevailed  ;  and 
on  Monday  last  the  daughter  of  my  old  friend.  Admiral 

,  having  attained  the   ivomanly  age  of  nineteen, 

was  conducted  to  the  church   by  her  pleasant  cousin 

J ,  who  told  some  few  years  older. 

Before  the  youthful  part  of  my  female  readers  ex- 
press their  indignation  at  the  abominable  loss  of  time 
occasioned  to  the  lovers  by  the  preposterous  notions  of 
my  old  friend,  they  will  do  well  to  consider  the  reluc- 
tance which  a  fond  parent  naturally  feels  at  parting 
with  his  child.  To  this  unwillingness,  I  believe,  in 
most  cases  may  be  traced  the  difference  of  opinion  on 
this  point  between  child  and  parent,  whatever  pre- 
tences of  interest  or  prudence  may  be  held  out  to  cover 
it.  The  hard-heartedness  of  fathers  is  a  fine  theme  for 
romance  writers,  a  sure  and  moving  topic  ;  but  is  there 
not  something  untender,  to  say  no  more  of  it,  in  the 
nurry  which  a  beloved  child  is  sometimes  in  to  tear 
herself  from  the  paternal  stock,  and  commit  herself  to 
tstrange  graftings  ?  The  case  is  heightened  where  the 
4ady,  as  in  the  present  instance,  hap[)ens  to  be  an  only 
rhild.  I  do  not  understand  these  matters  experimen- 
tally, but  I  can  make  a  shrewd  guess  at  the  wounded 
pride  of  a  parent  upon  these  occasions.     It  is  no  new 


5U0  THE    WEDDING. 

observation,  I  believe,  that  a  lover  Li  most  cases  has  no 
rival  so  much  to  be  feared  as  the  father.  Certainly 
there  is  a  jealousy  in  unparallel  subjects,  which  is  little 
less  heart-rending  than  the  passion  which  we  more 
strictly  christen  by  that  name.  Mothers'  scruples  are 
more  easily  got  over  ;  for  this  reason,  I  suppose,  that 
the  protection  transferred  to  a  husband  is  less  a  deroga- 
tion and  a  loss  to  their  authority  than  to  the  paternal. 
Mothers,  besides,  have  a  trembling  foresight,  which 
paints  the  inconveniences  (impossible  to  be  conceived 
in  the  same  degree  by  the  other  parent)  of  a  life  of 
forlorn  celibacy,  which  the  refusal  of  a  tolerable  match 
may  entail  upon  their  child.  Mothers'  instinct  is  a 
surer  guide  here,  than  the  cold  reasonings  of  a  father 
on  such  a  topic.  To  this  instinct  may  be  imputed,  and 
by  it  alone  may  be  excused,  the  unbeseeming  artifices, 
by  which  some  wives  push  on  the  matrimonial  projects 
of  their  daughters,  which  the  husband,  however  approv- 
ing, sliall  entertain  with  comparative  indifference.  A 
little  shamelessness  on  this  head  is  pardona):)le.  With 
this  explanation,  foi'wardness  becomes  a  grace,  and 
maternal  importunity  receives  the  name  of  a  virtue. 
But  the  parson  stays,  while  I  preposterously  assume 
his  office  ;  I  am  preaching,  while  the  bride  is  on  the 
threshold. 

Nor  let  any  of  my  female  readers  suppose  that  the 
sage  reflections  which  have  just  escaped  me  have  the 
obliquest  tendency  of  ajiplication  to  the  young  lady 
who,  it  will  be  seen,  is  about  to  venture  upon  a  changt 
m  her  condition,  at  a  mature  and  competent  age,  and 
not  without  the  fullest  api)robation  of  all  parties.  I 
only  deprecate  very  hasty  marriages. 

It  had  been  fixed  that  the  ceremony  should  be  gone 


THE    WEDDING.  391 

thiougli  at  an  early  hour,  to  give  time  for  a  little 
dejeune  afterwards,  to  which  a  select  parly  of  friends 
had  been  invited.  We  were  in  church  a  little  before 
the  clock  struck  eight. 

Nothing  could  be  more  juchcious  or  graceful  than  the 
dress  of  the  bridemaids  —  the  three  charming  Miss 
Foresters  —  on  this  mornino;.  To  give  the  bride  an 
opportunity  of  shining  singly,  they  had  come  habited 
all  in  green.  I  am  ill  at  describing  female  apparel ; 
but  while  she  stood  at  the  altar  in  vestments  white  and 
candid  as  her  thoughts,  a  sacrificial  whiteness,  tliey  as- 
sisted in  robes,  such  as  might  Jbecome  Diana's  nymphs ; 
—  Foresters  indeed,  —  as  such  who  had  not  yet  come 
to  the  resolution  of  putting  off  cold  "virginity.  These 
young  maids,  not  being  so  blest  as  to  have  a  mother 
living,  I  am  told,  keep  single  for  their  father's  sake, 
and  live  altogether  so  happy  with  their  remaining 
parent,  that  the  hearts  of  their  lovers  are  ever  broken 
with  the  prospect  (so  inauspicious  to  their  hopes)  of 
such  uninterrupted  and  provoking  home-comfort.  Gal- 
lant girls  !  each  a  victim  worthy  of  Iphigenia  ! 

I  do  not  know  what  business  I  have  to  be  present  in 
solemn  places.  I  cannot  divest  me  of  an  unseasonable 
disposition  to  levity  upon  the  most  awful  occasions.  I 
was  never  cut  out  for  a  public  functionary.  Ceremony 
and  I  have  long  shaken  hands  ;  but  I  could  not  resist 
the  im}wrtunities  of  the  young  lady's  father,  whose 
gout  unhappily  confined  him  at  home,  to  act  as  parent 
on  this  occasion,  and  give  away  the  hride.  Something 
ludicrous  occurred  to  me  at  this  most  serious  of  all 
moments,  —  a  sense  of  my  unfitness  to  have  the  dis- 
posal, even  in  imagination,  of  the  sweet  young  creature 
beside  me.     I  fear  I  was  betrayed  to  some  lightness, 


3'j2  the  wedding. 

for  t.ie  awful  eye  of  the  parson  —  and  tlie  rector's  eyo 
of  Saint  Mildred's  in  the  Poultry  is  no  trifle  of  a  re- 
buke —  was  upon  me  in  an  instant,  souring  my  incipi- 
ent jest  to  the  tristful  severities  of  a  funeral. 

This  was  the  only  misbeliavior  which  I  can  plead  to 
upon  this  solemn  occasion,  unless  what  was  objected  to 
me  after  the  ceremony,  by  one  of  the  handsome  Miss 

T ~  s,  be  accounted  a  solecism.     She  was  pleased  to 

isay  that  she  had  never  seen  a  gentleman  before  me  give 
away  a  bride,  in  black.  Now  black  has  been  my  ordi- 
nary apparel  so  long  —  indeed  I  take  it  to  be  the  proper 
costume  of  an  author  —  the  state  sanctions  it,  —  that  to 
have  appeared  in  some  lighter  color  would  have  raised 
more  mirth  at  my  expense,  than  the  anomaly  had 
created  censure.  But  I  could  perceive  that  the  bride's 
mother,  and  some  elderly  ladies  present  (God  bless 
them  !)  would  have  been  well  content,  if  I  had  come 
in  any  other  color  than  that.  But  I  got  over  the  omen 
by  a  lucky  apologue,  which  I  remembered  out  of  Pil- 
pay,  or  some  Indian  author,  of  all  the  birds  being  in- 
vited to  the  linnet's  wedding,  at  which  Avhen  all  the 
rest  came  in  their  gayest  feathers,  the  raven  alone 
apologized  for  his  cloak  because  "  he  had  no  other." 
This  tolerably  reconciled  the  elders.  But  with  the 
young  people  all  was  merriment,  and  shaking  of  hands, 
and  congratulations,  and  kissing  away  the  bride's  tears, 
and  kissing  from  her  in  return,  till  a  young  lady,  who 
assumed  some  experience  in  these  matters,  having  worn 
<he  nuptial  bands  some  four  or  five^eeks  longer  than 
her  friend,  rescued  her,  archly  observing,  with  half  an 
eye  upon  the  bridegi'oom,  that  at  this  rate  she  would 
have  "  none  left." 

My  fiiend  the  Admiral  was  in  fine  wig  and  buckle 


THE    WEDDING.  393 

on  this  occasion  —  a  striking  contrast  to  his  usual 
neglect  of  personal  appearance.  He  did  not  once 
shove  up  his  borrowed  locks  (his  custom  ever  at  his 
morning  studies)  to  betray  the  few  gray  stragglers  of 
his  own  beneath  them.  He  wore  an  aspect  of  thought- 
ful satisfaction.  I  trembled  for  the  hour,  which  at 
length  approached,  when  after  a  protracted  breakfast  of 
three  hours  —  if  stores  of  cold  fowls,  tongues,  hams, 
botargoes,  dried  fruits,  wines,  cordials,  &c.,  can  deserve 
so  meagre  an  appellation  —  the  coach  was  announced, 
ivhich  was  come  to  carry  off  the  bride  and  bridegroom 
for  a  season,  as  custom  has  sensibly  ordained,  into  the 
country ;  upon  which  design,  wishing  them  a  felicitous 
journey,  let  us  return  to  the  assembled  guests. 

As  when  a  well-graced  actor  leaves  the  stage, 

The  eyes  of  men 

Are  idly  bent  on  him  that  enters  next, 

so  idly  did  we  bend  our  eyes  upon  one  another,  when 
the  chief  performers  in  the  morning's  pageant  had 
vanished.  None  told  his  tale.  None  sipped  her  glass. 
The  poor  Admiral  made  an  effort,  —  it  was  not  much. 
I  had  anticipated  so  far.  Even  the  inftnity  of  full 
satisfaction,  that  had  betrayed  itself  through  the  prim 
looks  and  quiet  deportment  of  his  lady,  began  to  wane 
into  something  of  misgiving.  No  one  knew  whether  to 
take  their  leaves  or  stay.  We  seemed  assembled  upon 
a  silly  occasion.  In  this  crisis,  betwixt  tarrying  and 
departure,  I  must  do  justice  to  a  foolish  talent  of  mine, 
^diich  had  otherwise  like  to  have  brought  me  into  dis- 
j;race  in  the  forepart  of  the  day  ;  I  mean  a  power,  in 
my  emergency,  of  thinking  and  giving  vent  to  all 
inanner  of  strange  nonsense.    In  this  awkward  dilemma 


394  THE    WEDDING. 

I  found  it  sovereign.  I  rattled  off  seme  of  my  most 
excellent  absurdities.  All  were  willing  to  be  leheved, 
at  any  expense  "of  reason,  from  the  pressure  of  the  in- 
tolerable vacuum  which  had  succeeded  to  the  morning 
bustle.  By  this  means  1  was  fortunate  in  keeping 
together  the  better  part  of  the  company  to  a  late  hour ; 
and  a  rubber  of  whist  (the  Admirals  favorite  game) 
with  some  rare  strokes  of  chance  as  well  as  skill,  which 
came  opportunely  on  his  side,  —  lengthened  out  till 
midnight,  —  dismissed  the  old  gentleman  at  last  uo  his 
bed  with  comparatively  easy  spirits. 

I  have  been  at  my  old  friend's  various  times  dnce. 
I  do  not  know  a  visiting  place  where  every  guest  is  so 
perfectly  at  his  ease ;  nowhere,  where  harmony  is  so 
strangely  the  result  of  confusion.  Everybody  "is  at 
cross  purposes,  yet  the  eifect  is  so  much  better  than 
uniformity.  Contradictory  orders ;  servants  pulling 
one  way ;  master  and  mistress  driving  some  other, 
yet  both  diverse;  visitors  huddled  up  in  corners  ;  chairs 
unsymmetrized ;  candles  disposed  by  chance  ;  meals  at 
odd  hours,  tea  and  supper  at  once,  or  the  latter  preced- 
ing the  former  ;  the  host  and.  the  guest  conferring,  yet 
each  \ipon  »  different  topic,  each  understanding  him- 
self, neither  trying  to  understand  or  hear  the  other; 
draughts  and  politics,  chess  and  political  economy, 
cards  and  conversation  on  nautical  matters,  going  on  at 
once,  without  the  hope,  or  indeed  the  wisn,  of  distin- 
guishing them,  make  it  altogether  the  most  perfect  oon- 
ccrdia  discors  you  shall  meet  with.  Yet  somehow  the 
>.i  house  is  not  quite  what  it  should  be.  The  Admiral 
still  enjoys  his  pipe,  but  he  has  no  Miss  Emily  to  fill  it 
for  him.  The  instrument  stands  where  it  stood,  but 
she  is  gone,  whose  delicate  touch  could  sometimes  for  a 


REJOICINGS   Ul'ON  THE  NEW  YEAR'S  COMING  OF  AGE.  39;j 

short  minute  appease  the  warring  'elements.  He  has 
learnt,  as  Marvel  expresses  it,  to  "  make  his  destiny  his 
choice."  He  bears  bravely  up,  but  he  does  not  come 
out  with  his  flashes  of  wild  wit  so  thick  as  formerly. 
His  sea-songs  seldomer  escape  him.  His  wife,  too, 
looks  as  if  she  wanted-  some  younger  body  to  scold  and 
set  to  rights.  We  all  miss  a  junior  presence.  It  is 
wonderful  how  one  young  maiden  freshens  up,  and 
keeps  green,  the  paternal  roof.  Old  and  young  seem 
to  have  an  interest  in  her,  so  long  as  she  is  not  abso- 
lutely disposed  of.  The  youtlifiilness  of  the  house  is 
flown.     Emily  is  married. 


REJOICINGS   UPON   THE   NEW  YEAR'S   COMING 
OF  AGE. 

The  Old  Year  being  dead,  and  the  New  Year  com- 
ing of  age,  which  he  does,  by  Calendar  Law,  as  soon 
as  the  breath  is  out  of  the  old  gentleman's  body, 
nothing  would  serve  the  young  spark  but  he  must  give 
a  dinner  upon  the  occasion,  to  which  all  the  Days  in 
the  year  were  invited.  The  Festivals^  whom  he  de- 
puted as  his  stewards,  were  mightily  taken  with  the 
notion.  They  had  been  engaged  time  out  of  mind, 
they  said,  in  providing  mirth  and  good  cheer  for 
mortals  below  ;  and  it  was  time  they  should  have  a 
taste  of  their  own  bounty.  It  was  stiffly  debated 
among  them  whether  the  Fasts  should  be  admitted. 
Some  said,  the  ajjpearance  of  such  lean,  starved  guests, 


396  REJOICINGS    UPON   THE 

with  their  mortified  faces,  would  pervert  the  ends  of 
the  meeting.  But  the  objection  was  overruie.d  by 
CJiristmas  Day,  who  had  a  design  upon  Ash  Wednes- 
day  (as  you  shall  hear),  and  a  mighty  desire  to  see 
how  the  old  Domine  would  behave  himself  in  his  cups. 
Only  the  Vigils  were  requested  to  come  with  their 
lanterns,  to  light  the  gentlefolks  home  at  night. 

All  the  Days  came  to  their  day.  Covers  were  pro- 
vided for  three  hundred  and  sixty-five  guests  at  the 
principal  table ;  with  an  occasional  knife  and  fork  at 
the  sideboard  for  the  Tiventy-Ninth  of  February. 

I  should  have  told  you,  that  cards  of  invitation  had 
been  issued.  The  cari'iers  were  the  Hours;  twelv^e 
little,  merry,  whirligig  foot-pages,  as  you  should  desire 
to  see,  that  went  all  round,  and  found  out  the  persons 
invited  well  enough,  with  the  exception  of  Easter  Day, 
Shrove  Tuesday,  and  a  few  such  Movables,  who  had 
lately  shifted  their  quarters. 

Well,  they  all  met  at  last,  foul  Days,  fine  Days,  all 
sorts  of  Days,  and  a  rare  din  t}|ey  made  of  it.  There 
was  nothing  but.  Hail !  fellow  Day,  —  well  met,  — 
brother  Day  —  sister  Day  —  only  Lady  Day  kept  a 
little  on  the  aloof  and  seemed  somewhat  scornful.  Yet 
some  said.  Twelfth  Day  cut  her  out  and  out,  for  she 
came  in  a  tifilmy  suit,  white  and  gold,  like  a  queen  on 
a  fi'ost-cake,  all  royal,  glittering,  and  Epiphanous.  The 
rest  came,  some  in  green,  some  in  white,  —  but  old  Lent 
and  his  family  were  not  yet  out  of  mourning.  Rainy 
Days  came  in,  dripping;  and  sunshiny  Days  helped 
them  to  change  their  stockings.  Wedding  Day  was 
there  in  his  marriage  finery,  a  little  the  worse  for  wear. 
Pay  Day  came  late,  as  he  always  does  ;  and  Doomsday 
sent  word  —  he  might  be  expected. 


NEW   YEAR'S   COMING    OF   AGE.  397 

April  Fiol  (as  my  young  lord's  jester)  took  upon 
himself  to  marshal  the  guests,  and  wild  work  he  made 
with  it.  It  would  have  posed  old  Erra  Pater  to  have 
found  out  any  given  Day  in  the  year,  to  erect  a  scheme 
upon  —  good  Days,  bad  Days  were  so  shuffled  together, 
to  the  confounding  of  all  sober  horoscopy. 

He  had  stuck  the  Twenty-First  of  Jane  next  to  tho 
Twenty-Second  of  December,  and  the  former  looked  like 
a  Maypole  siding  a  marrow-bone.  Ash  Wednesday  got 
wedged  in  (as  was  concerted)  betwixt  CJiristmas  and 
Lord  Mayor  s  Days.  Lord  !  how  he  laid  about  him  ! 
Nothing  but  barons  of  beef  and  turkeys  would  go  down 
with  him,  —  to  the  creat  greasino  and  detriment  of  his 
new  sackcloth  bib  and  tucker.  And  still  Christmas 
Day  was  at  his  elbow,  plying  him  with  the  wassail- 
bowl,  till  he  roared,  and  hiccupp'd,  and  protested  there 
was  no  faith  in  dried  ling,  but  commended  it  to  the 
devil  for  a  sour,  windy,  acrimonious,  censorious  hy-po- 
crit-crit-critical  mess,  and  no  dish  for  a  gentleman. 
Then  he  dipt  his  fist  into  the  middle  of  the  great 
custard  that  stood  before  his  left-hand  yieighhor,  and 
daubed  his  hungry  beard  all  over  witli  it,  till  you  would 
have  taken  him  for  the  Last  Day  in  December,  it  so 
hung  in  icicles. 

At  another  part  of  the  table,  Shrove  Tuesday  wa3 
helping  the  Second  of  September  to  some  cock  broth,  — 
which  courtesy  the  latter  returned  with  the  delicate 
thigh  of  a  hen  pheasant,  —  so  there  was  no  love  lost  for 
that  matter.  The  Last  of  Lent  was  spunging  upon 
Shrovetide' s  pancakes  ;  which  April  Fool  perceiving, 
told  him  he  did  well,  for  pancakes  were  proper  to  a 
good  fry-day. 

In  another  part,  a  hubbub  arose  about  the   Thirtieth 


398  REJOICINGS    UPON   THE 

of  January^  who,  it  seems,  being  a  sour  puritanic  char- 
acter, that  thouglit  nobody's  meat  good  or  sanctified 
enougli  for  him,  had  smuggled  into  the  room  a  calf's 
head,  which  he  had  had  cooked  at  home  for  that  pur- 
pose, thinking  to  feast  thereon  incontinently ;  but  as  it 
lay  in  the  dish  March  Mcmytveathers,  who  is  a  very  fine 
lady,  and  subject  to  the  meagrims,  screamed  out  there 
was  a  "  human  head  in  the  platter,"  and  raved  about 
Herodias's  dauohter  to  that  degree,  that  the  obnoxious 
viand  was  obliffed  to  be  removed  ;  nor  did  she  recover 
her  stomach  till  she  had  gulped  down  a  Restorative^ 
confected  of  Oak  Apple,  which  the  merry  Twenty- 
Ninth  of  May  alwayj?  carries  about  with  him  for  that 
puii^ose. 

The  King's  health  *  beino-  called  for  after  this,  a 
notable  dispute  arose  between  the  Twelfth  of  August 
(a  zealous  old  Whig  gentlewoman),  and  the  Twenty- 
TJiird  of  April  (a  newfangled  lady  of  the  Tory 
stamp),  as  to  which  of  them  should  have  the  honor 
to  propose  it.  August  grew  hot  upon  the  matter, 
affirming  time  out  of  mind  the  prescriptive  right  to 
have  lain  with  her,  till  her  rival  had  basely  supplanted 
her  ;  whom  she  represented  as  little  better  than  a  kept 
mistress,  who  went  about  in  fine  clothes,  while  she  (the 
legitimate  Birthday)  had  scarcely  a  rag,  &c. 

April  Fool,  being  made  mediator,  confirmed  the  right 
in  the  strongest  form  of  words  to  the  appellant,  but  de- 
cided for  peace's  sake  that  the  exercise  of  it  should 
remain  with  the  present  possessor.  At  the  same  time, 
he  slyly  rounded  the  first  lady  in  the  ear,  that  an  action 
might  lie  against  the  Crown  for  hi-geny. 

It  beginning  to  grow  a  little  duskish,  Candlemcu 
*  King  George  IV. 


.NEW   YEAR'S   COMING   OF   AGE.  399 

lustily  bawled  out  for  lights,  which  was  opposed  by 
all  the  Days^  who  protested  against  burning  daylight. 
Then  fair  water  was  handed  round  in  silver  ewers,  and 
the  same  lady  was  observed  to  take  an  unut,ual  time  in 
Washing  herself. 

May  Day^  with  that  sweetness  whicli  is  peculiar  lo 
her,  in  a  neat  speech  proposing  the  health  of  the 
founder,  crowned  her  goblet  (and  by  her  example  the 
rest  of  the  company)  with  garlands.  This  being  done, 
the  lordly  New  Year  from  the  upper  end  of  the  table, 
in  a  cordial  but  somewhat  lofty  tone,  returned  thanks. 
He  felt  proud  on  an  occasion  of  meeting  so  many  of  his 
worthy  father's  late  tenants,  promised  to  improve  their 
farms,  and  at  the  same  time  to  abate  (if  anything  was 
found  unreasonable)  in  their  rents. 

At  the  mention  of  this,  the  four  Quarter  Days  in- 
voluntarily looked  at  each  other,  and  smiled ;  April 
Fool  whistled  to  an  old  tune  of  "  New  Brooms  ;  "  and 
a  surly  old  rebel  at  the  farther  end  of  the  table  (who 
was  discovered  to  be  no  other  than  the  Fiftli  of  Novem- 
ber^ muttered  out,  distinctly  enough  to  be  heard  by  the 
whole  company,  words  to  this  effect,  that  "  when  the 
old  one  is  gone,  he  is  a  fool  that  looks  for  a  better." 
Which  rudeness  of  his,  the  guests  resenting,  unani- 
mously voted  his  expulsion  ;  and  the  malecontent  was 
thrust  out  neck  and  heels  into  the  cellar,  as  the  proper- 
est  place  for  such  a  houtefeu  and  firebrand  as  he  had 
shown  himself  to  be. 

Order  being  restored  —  the  young  lord  (who,  to  say 
truth,  had  been  a  little  ruffled,  and  ])ut  beside  his 
oratory)  in  as  few,  and  yet  as  obliging  words  as  pos- 
sible, assured  them  of  entire  welcome ;  and,  with  a 
graceful  turn,  singling  out  poor  Ticenty-Ninth  of  Febi'ii- 


4/)0  REJOICINGS   UPON   THE 

ary^  that  had  sat  all  this  while  mum-chance  at  tlie 
sideboard,  begged  to  couple  his  health  with  that  of  the 
good  company  before  him,  —  which  he  di'ank  accord- 
ingly ;  observing,  that  he  had  not  seen  his  honest  face 
any  time  these  four  years,  —  with  a  number  of  endear- 
ing expressions  besides.  At  the  same  time,  removing 
the  solitary  Day  from  the  forlorn  seat  which  had  been 
assigned  him,  he  stationed  him  at  his  own  board, 
somewhere  between  the  Ch'eek  Calends  and  Latter 
Lammas. 

Ash  Wednesday,  being  now  called  upon  for  a  song, 
with  his  eyes  fast  stuck  in  his  head,  and  as  well  as  the 
Canary  he  had  swallowed  would  give  him  leave,  struck 
up  a  Carol,  which  Christmas  Day  had  taught  him  for 
the  nonce ;  and  was  followed  by  the  latter,  who  gave 
*'  Miserere "  in  fine  style,  hitting  off  the  mumping 
notes  and  lengthened  drawl  of  Old  3Iortification  with 
infinite  humoV.  Aj)ril  Fool  swore  they  had  exchanged 
conditions ;  but  Good  Friday  was  observed  to  look  ex- 
tremely grave ;  and  Sunday  held  her  fan  before  her 
face,  that  she  might  not  be  seen  to  smile. 

/Shrovetide,  Lord  3Iayors  Day,  and  April  Fool,  next 
joined  m  a  glee  — 

Which  is  the  properest  day  to  drink? 

in  which  all  the  Days  chiming  in,  made  a  merry 
burden. 

They  next  fell  to  quibbles  and  conundrums.  The 
question  being  proposed,  who  had  the  greatest  number 
of  followers,  —  the  Quarter  Days  said,  there  could  be 
no  question  as  to  that ;  for  they  had  all  the  creditors  in 
the  world  dogging  their  heels.  But  April  Fool  gave  it 
in  favor  of  the  Forty  Days  before  Easter ;   because  the 


NEW   YEAR'S    COMING   OF   AGE.  401 

debtors   in   all   cases  outnumbered  the  creditors,  and 
they  kept  lent  all  the  year. 

All  this  Avhile  Valentine  s  Day  kept  courting  pretty 
May,  who  sat  next  him,  slipping  amorous  billets-doux 
under  the  table,  till  the  Dog  Days  (who  are  naturally 
of  a  warm  constitution)  began  to  be  jealous,  and  to 
bark  and  rage  exceedingly.  April  Fool,  who  likes  a 
bit  of  sport  above  measure,  and  had  some  pretensions, 
to  the  lady  besides,  as  being  but  a  cousin  once  re- 
mo'v'ed,  —  clapped  and  halloo'd  them  on  ;  and  as  fast 
as  their  indignation  cooled,  those  mad  wags,  the  Ember 
Days,  were  at  it  with  their  bellows,  to  blow  it  into  a 
flame ;  and  all  was  in  a  ferment ;  till  old  Madam 
Septuagesima  (who  boasts  herself  the  Mother  of  the 
Days)  wisely  diverted  the  conversation  with  a  tedious 
tale  of  the  lovers  which  she  could  reckon  when  she  was 
young ;  and  of  one  Master  Rogation  Day  in  particular, 
who  was  forever  putting  the  question  to  her ;  but  she 
kept  him  at  a  distance,  as  the  chronicle  would  tell,  — 
by  which  I  apprehend  she  meant  the  Almanac.  Then 
she  rambled  on  to  the  Days  that  were  gone,  the  good  old 
Days,  and  so  to  the  Days  before  the  Flood,  —  which 
plainly  showed  her  old  head  to  be  little  better  than 
crazed  and  doited. 

Day  being  ended,  the  Days  called  for  their  cloaks 
and  greatcoats,  and  took  their  leaves.  Lord  Mayor'' & 
Day  went  off  in  a  Mist,  as  usual ;  Shortest  Day  in  a 
deep  black  Fog,  that  wrapt  the  little  gentleman  all 
round  like  a  hedge-hog.  Two  Vigils  —  so  watchmen 
are  called  in  heaven  —  saw  Chnstmas  Day  safe  home, 
—  they  had  been  used  to  the  business  before.  Another 
Vigil  —  a  stout,  sturdy,  patrole,  called  the  Fve  of  St. 
Christopher  —  seeing  Ash   Wednesday   in   a   condition 

vol..  III.  26 


102  OLD    CHINA. 

little  better  than  he  should  be,  —  e'en  whipt  him  over 
his  shoulders,  pick-a-pack  fashion,  and  Old  Mortificor 
tion  went  floating  home  singing  — 

On  the  bat's  back  do  I  fly, 

and  a  number  of  old  snatches  besides,  between  dnink 
and  sober ;  but  very  few  Aves  or  Penitentiaries  (you 
may  believe  me)  were  among  them.  Longest  Bay  set 
off  westward  in  beautiful  crimson  and  gold,  —  the  rest, 
some  in  one  fashion,  some  in  another;  but  Valentine 
and  pretty  May  took  their  departure  together  in  one  of 
the  prettiest  silvery  twilights  a  Lover's  Day  could  wish 
to  set  in. 


OLD  CfflNA. 


I  HAVE  an  almost  feminine  partiality  for  old  china. 
When  I  go  to  see  any  great  house,  I  inquire  for  the 
china-closet,  and  next  for  the  picture  gallery.  I  can- 
not defend  the  order  of  preference,  but  by  saying,  that 
we  have  all  some  taste  or  other,  of  too  ancient  a  date 
to  admit  of  our  remembering  distinctly  that  it  was  an 
acquired  one.  I  can  call  to  mind  the  first  play,  and 
the  first  exhibition,  that  I  was  taken  to ;  but  I  am  not 
conscious  of  a  time  when  china  jars  and  saucers  were 
introduced  into  my  imagination. 

I  had  no  repugnance  then  —  why  should  1  now 
have  ?  —  to  those  little,  lawless,  azure-tinctured  gro- 
tesques that,  under  the  notion  of  men  and  women,  float 


OLD   CHINA.  403 

about,  uncircumscribed  by  any  element,  in  that  world 
before  perspective  —  a  china  teacup. 

I  like  to  see  my  old  friends  —  whom  distance  cannot 
diminish  —  figuring  up  in  the  air  (so  they  appear  to 
our  optics),  yet  on  terra  fir  ma  still,  —  for  so  we  must  in 
courtesy  interpret  that  speck  of  deeper  blue,  —  which 
the  decorous  artist,  to  prevent  absurdity,  had  made  to 
spring  up  beneath  their  sandals. 

I  love  the  men  with  women's  faces,  and  the  women, 
ii  possible,  with  still  more  womanish  expressions. 

Here  is  a  young  and  courtly  Mandarin,  handing  tea 
to  a  lady  from  a  salver  —  two  miles  off.  See  how  dis- 
tance seems  to  set  off  respect !  And  here  the  same 
lady,   or  another  —  for  likeness  is  identity  on  teacups 

—  is  stepping  into  a  little  fairy  boat,  moored  on  the 
hither  side  of  this  calm  garden  river,  with  a  dainty 
mincing  foot,  which  in  a  right  angle  of  incidence  (a3 
angles  go  in  our  world)  must  infallibly  land  her  in  the 
midst  of  a  flowery  mead  —  a  furlong  off  on  the  other 
side  of  the  same  strange  stream  ! 

Farther  on  —  if  far  or  near  can  be  predicated  of 
their  world  —  see  horses,  trees,  pagodas,  dancing  the 
hays. 

Here  —  a  cow  and  rabbit  couchant,  and  coextensive, 

—  so  objects  show,  seen  through  the  lucid  atmosphere 
t>f  fine  Cathay. 

I  was  pointing  out  to  my  cousin  last  evening,  over 
our  Hyson,  (which  we  are  old-fashioned  enough  to 
drink  unmixed  still  of  an  afternoon,)  some  of  these 
speeiosa  miracida  upon  a  set  of  extraordinary  old  blue 
china  (a  recent  purchase)  which  we  were  now  for  the 
first  time  using;  and  could  not  help  remarking,  how 
favorable  circumstances  had  been  to  us  of  late  years. 


404  OLD   CHINA. 

that  we  could  afford  to  please  the  eye  sometimes  with 
trifles  of  this  sort  —  when  a  passing  sentiment  seemed 
to  overshade  the  brows  of  my  companion.  I  am  quick 
at  detectino;  these  summer  clouds  in  Bi'ido;et. 

"  I  wish  the  good  old  times  would  come  again,"  she 
said,  "  when  we  were  not  quite  so  rich.  I  do  not 
mean,  that  I  want  to  he  poor ;  hut  there  was  a  middle 
state  "  —  so  she  was  pleased  to  ramble  on,  —  "  in  which 
I  am  sure  we  were  a  great  deal  happier.  A  purchase 
is  but  a  purchase,  now  that  you  have  money  enough 
and  to  spare.  Formerly  it  used  to  be  a  triumph. 
When  we  coveted  a  cheap  luxury  (and,  O  !  how  much 
ado  I  had  to  get  you  to  consent  in  those  times  !  )  —  we 
were  used  to  have  a  debate  two  or  three  days  before, 
and  to  weigh  the  for  and  against^  and  think  what  we 
might  spare  it  out  of,  and  what  saving  we  could  hit 
upon,  that  should  be  an  equivalent.  A  thing  was 
worth  buying  then,  when  we  felt  the  money  that  we 
paid  for  it. 

"  Do  you  remember  the  brown  suit,  which  you  made 
to  hang  upon  you,  till  all  your  friends  cried  shame 
upon  you,  it  grew  so  threadbare  —  and  all  because  of 
that  folio  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  which  you  dragged 
home  late  at  night  from  Barker's  in  Covent  Garden  ? 
Do  you  remember  how  we  eyed  it  for  weeks  before  we 
could  make  up  our  minds  to  the  purchase,  and  had  not 
come  to  a  determination  till  it  was  near  ten  o'clock 
of  the  Saturday  night,  when  you  set  off  fi'om  Islington, 
fearing  you  should  be  too  late,  —  and  when  the  old 
bookseller  with  some  grumbling  opened  his  shop,  and 
by  the  twinkling  taper  (for  he  was  setting  bed  wards) 
lighted  out  the  relic  from  his  dusty  treasures,  —  and 
W'hen  you  lugged  it  home,  wishing  it  were  twice  a3 


OLD   CHINA.  405 

cumbersome,  —  and  when  you  presented  it  to  me,  — 
and  wlien  we  were  exploring  the  perfectness  of  it,  Qcol- 
lating  you  called  it,)  —  and  while  I  was  repairing  some 
of  the  loose  leaves  with  paste,  which  your  impatience 
would  not  suffer  to  be  left  till  daybreak,  —  was  there  no 
jJeasure  in  being  a  poor  man  ?  or  can  those  neat  black 
clothes  which  you  wear  now,  and  are  so  careful  to  keep 
brushed,  since  we  have  become  rich  and  finical,  give 
you  half  the  honest  vanity,  with  which  you  flaunted  it 
about  in  that  overworn  suit  —  your  old  corbeau  —  for 
four  or  five  weeks  longer  than  you  should  have  done, 
to  pacify  your  conscience  for  the  mighty  sum  of  fifteen 
—  or  sixteen  shillings  Avas  it  ?  —  a  great  affair  we 
thought  it  then  —  which  you  had  lavished  on  the  old 
folio.  Now  you  can  afford  to  buy  any  book  that 
pleases  you,  but  I  do  not  see  that  you  ever  bring  me 
home  any  nice  old  purchases  now. 

"  When  you  came  home  with  twenty  apologies  for 
laying  out  a  less  number  of  shillings  upon  that  print 
after  Lionardo,  which  we  christened  the  '  Lady  Blanch  ; ' 
when  you  looked  at  the  purchase,  and  thought  of  the 
money,  —  and  thought  of  the  money,  and  looked  again 
at  the  picture,  —  was  there  no  pleasure  in  being  a  poor 
man  ?  Now,  you  have  nothing  to  do  but  to  walk  into 
Colnaghi's,  and  buy  a  wilderness  of  Lionardos.  Yet 
do  you  ? 

"  Then,  do  you  remember  our  pleasant  walks  to  En- 
field, and  Potter's  bar,  and  Waltham,  when  we  had  a 
holiday — holidays,  and  all  other  fun,  are  gone  now 
we  are  rich  —  and  the  little  handbasket  in  which  I 
used  to  deposit  our  day's  fare  of  savory  cold  lamb  and 
salad,  —  and  hoAV  you  would  pry  about  at  noontide  for 
some  decent  house,  where  we  might  go  in  and  produce 


406  OLD    CHINA. 

our  store  —  only  paying  for  the  ale  that  you  must  call 
for  —  and  speculate  upon  the  looks  of  the  landlady, 
and  whether  she  was  likely  to  allow  us  a  tablecloth,  — 
and  wish  for  such  another  honest  hostess,  as  Izaak 
Walton  has  described  many  a  one  on  the  pleasant 
banks  of  the  Lea,  when  he  went  a-fishing  —  and  some- 
times they  would  prove  obliging  enough,  and  some- 
times they  would  look  grudgingly  upon  us,  —  but  we 
had  cheerfiil  looks  still  for  one  another,  and  would  eat 
our  plain  food  savorily,  scarcely  grudging  Piscator  his 
Trout  Hall  ?  Now  —  when  we  go  out  a  day's  pleasur- 
ing, which  is  seldom  moreover,  we  ride  part  of  the 
way  —  and  go  into  a  fine  inn,  and  order  the  best  of 
dinners,  never  debating  the  expense  —  which  after  all, 
never  has  half  the  relish  of  those  chance  country  snaps, 
when  we  were  at  the  mercy  of  imcertain  usage,  and  a 
precarious  welcome. 

"  You  are  too  proud  to  see  a  play  anywhere  now  but 
in  the  pit.  Do  you  remember  where  it  was  we  used  to 
sit  when  we  saw  the  Battle  of  Hexham,  and  the  Sur- 
render of  Calais,  and  Bannister  and  Mrs.  Bland  in  the 
Children  in  the  Wood,  —  when  we  squeezed  out  our 
shillings  a-piece  to  sit  three  or  four  times  in  a  season  in 
the  one-shilling  gallery  —  where  you  felt  all  the  time 
that  you  ought  not  to  have  brought  me  —  and  more 
strongly  I  felt  obligation  to  you  for  having  brought  me 
—  and  the  pleasure  was  the  better  for  a  little  shame,  — 
and  when  the  curtain  drew  up,  what  cared  we  for  our 
place  in  the  house,  or  what  mattered  it  where  we  were 
sittinor  when  our  thouo;hts  were  with  Rosalind  in 
Arden,  or  with  Viola  at  the  Court  of  Illyria  ?  You 
used  to  say,  that  the  Gallery  was  the  best  place  of  all 
for  enjoying  a  play  socially,  —  that  the  relish  of  such 


OLD   CHINA  407 

exhibitions  must  be  in  proportion  to  the  infrequency  of 
going,  —  that  the  company  we  met  there,  not  being  in 
general  readers  of  plays,  were  obliged  to  attend  the 
more,  and  did  attend,  to  what  was  going  on,  on  the 
stage,  —  because  a  word  lost  would  have  been  a  chasm, 
which  it  was  impossible  for  them  to  fill  up.  With  such 
reflections  we  consoled  our  px'ide  then,  —  and  I  appeal 
to  you,  whether,  as  a  woman,  I  met  generally  with  less 
attention  and  accommodation  than  I  have  done  since 
ill  more  expensive  situations  in  the  house  ?  The  get- 
ting in  indeed,  and  the  crowding  up  those  inconvenient 
staircases  was  bad  enough,  —  but  there  was  still  a  law 
of  civility  to  woman  recognized  to  quite  as  great  an  ex- 
tent as  we  ever  found  in  the  other  passages,  —  and  how 
a  little  difficulty  overcome  heightened  the  snug  seat 
and  the  play,  afterwards !  Now  we  can  only  pay  our 
money  and  walk  in.  You  cannot  see,  you  say,  in  the 
galleries  now.  I  am  sure  we  saw,  and  heard  too,  well 
enough  then,  —  but  sight,  and  all,  I  think,  is  gone  with 
our  poverty. 

"  There  was  pleasure  in  eating  strawberries,  before 
they  became  quite  common  —  in  the  first  dish  of  peas, 
while  they  were  yet  dear  —  to  have  them  for  a  nice 
supper,  a  treat.  What  treat  can  we  have  now  ?  If 
we  were  to  treat  ourselves  now,  —  that  is,  to  have  dain- 
ties a  little  above  our  means,  it  would  be  selfish  and 
wicked.  It  is  the  very  little  more  that  we  allow  our- 
selves beyond  what  the  actual  poor  can  get  at,  that 
makes  what  I  call  a  treat,  —  when  two  people  living 
together,  as  we  have  done,  now  and  then  indulge 
themselves  in  a  cheap  luxury,  which  both  like ;  while 
each  apologizes,  and  is  willing  to  take  both  halves  of 
the  blame  to  his  single  share.     I  see  no  harm  in  people 


408  OLD   CHINA. 

making  much  of  themselves,  in  that  sense  of  the  word. 
It  may  give  them  a  hint  how  to  make  much  of  others. 
But  now  —  what  I  mean  by  the  word  —  we  never  do 
make  much  of  ourselves.  None  but  the  poor  can  do  it. 
I  do  not  mean  the  veriest  poor  of  all,  but  persons  as  we 
were,  just  above  poverty. 

"  I  know  what  you  were  going  to  say,  that  it  is 
nn'ghty  pleasant  at  the  end  of  the  year  to  make  all 
meet,  —  and  much  ado  we  used  to  have  every  Thirty- 
first  night  of  December  to  account  for  our  exceedings, 
—  many  a  long  face  did  you  make  over  your  puzzled 
accounts,  and  in  contriving  to  make  it  out  how  we  had 
spent  so  much  —  or  that  we  had  not  spent  so  much  — 
or  that  it  was  impossible  we  shoidd  spend  so  much  next 
year,  —  and  still  we  found  our  slender  capital  decreas- 
ing, —  but  then,  —  betwixt  ways,  and  projects,  and 
compromises  of  one  sort  or  another,  and  talk  of  cur- 
tailing this  charge,  and  doing  without  that  for  the 
future,  —  and  the  hope  that  youth  brings,  and  laughing 
spirits,  (in  which  you  were  never  poor  till  now,)  we 
pocketed  up  our  loss,  and  in  conclusion,  with  '  lusty 
brimmers  '  (as  you  used  to  quote  it  out  of  hearty  cheer- 
ful Mr.  Cotton^  as  you  called  him),  we  used  to  wel- 
come in  the  '  comino;  cuest.'  Now  we  have  no  reck- 
ed   o 

oning  at  all  at  the  end  of  the  old  year, — no  flattering 
promises  about  the  new  year  doing  better  for  us." 

Bridget  is  so  sparing  of  her  speech  on  most  occasions, 
that  when  she  gets  into  a  rhetorical  vein,  I  am  careful 
how  I  interrupt  it.  I  could  not  help,  however,  smiling 
at  the  })hantom  of  wealth  which  her  dear  imagination 

had  conjured  up  out  of  a  clear  income  of  poor 

hundred  pounds  a  year.  "  It  is  true  we  were  happiei 
when  we  were  poorer,  but  we  wore  also  younger,  niv 


OLD    CHINA.  409 

cousin.  I  am  afraid  we  must  put  up  with  the  excess, 
f<jr  if  we  were  to  shake  the  superflux  into  the  sea,  we 
should  not  much  mend  ourselves.  That  we  had  much 
to  struggle  with,  as  we  grew  up  together,  we  have  rea- 
son to  be  most  thankful.  It  strengthened,  and  knit  our 
compact  closer.  We  could  never  have  been  what  we 
have  been  to  each  other,  if  we  had  always  had  the 
sufficiency  which  you  now  complain  of.  The  resisting 
power,  —  those  natural  dilations  of  the  youthful  spirit, 
which  circumstances  cannot  straiten,  —  with  us  are  long 
since  passed  away.  Competence  to  age  is  supplement- 
ary youth,  a  sorry  supplement  indeed,  but  I  fear  the 
best  that  is  to  be  had.  We  must  ride  where  we 
formerly  walked ;  live  better  and  lie  softer  —  and  shall 
be  wise  to  do  so  —  than  we  had  means  to  do  in  those 
good  old  days  you  speak  of.  Yet  could  those  days  re- 
turn, —  could  you  and  I  once  more  walk  our  thirty 
miles  a  day, — could  Bannister  and  Mrs.  Bland  again 
be  young,  and  you  and  I  be  young  to  see  them,  — 
could  the  good  old  one-shilling  gallery  days  return,  — 
they  are  di'eams,  my  cousin,  now,  —  but  could  you  and 
I  at  this  moment,  instead  of  tliis  quiet  argument,  by 
our  well-carpeted  fireside,  sitting  on  this  luxurious  sofa, 
—  be  once  more  struggling  up  those  inconvenient  stair- 
cases, pushed  about,  and  squeezed,  and  elbowed  by  the 
poorest  rabble  of  poor  gallery  scramblers,  —  could  I 
once  more  hear  those  anxious  shrieks  of  youi's,  —  and 
the  delicious  Thank  Grod,  ive  are  safe,  which  always 
followed  when  the  topmost  stair,  conquered,  let  in  the 
first  light  of  the  whole  cheerful  theatre  down  beneath 
us,  —  I  know  not  the  fathom  line  that  ever  touched  a 
descent  so  deep  as  I  would  be  willing  to  bury  more 
wealth  in  than  Croesus  had,  or  the  great  Jew  R ia 


410  THE   CHILD   ANGEL;   A  DREAM 

supposed  to  have,  to  purchase  it.  And  nctw  do  just 
look  at  tliat  merry  little  Chinese  waiter  holding  an 
umbrella,  big  enough  for  a  bed-tester,  over  the  head  of 
that  pretty  insipid  half  Madona-ish  chit  of  a  lady  in  that 
very  blue  summer-house." 


THE  CHILD  ANGEL;  A  DREAM. 

I  CHANCED  upon  the  prettiest,  oddest,  fantastical 
thing  of  a  dream  the  other  night,  that  you  shall  hear 
of.  I  had  been  reading  the  "  Loves  of  the  Angels," 
and  went  to  bed  with  my  head  full  of  speculations,  sug- 
gested by  that  extraordinary  legend.  It  had  given 
birth  to  innumerable  conjectures  ;  and,  I  remember  the 
last  waking  thought,  which  I  gave  expression  to  on  my 
pillow,  was  a  sort  of  wonder  "what  could  come  of  it." 

I  was  suddenly  transported,  how  or  whither  I  could 
scarcely  make  out,  —  but  to  some  celestial  region.  It 
was  not  the  real  heavens  neither  —  not  the  downright 
Bible  heaven — but  a  kind  of  fairy-land  heaven,  about 
which  a  poor  human  fancy  may  have  leave  to  sport  and 
air  itself,  I  will  hope,  without  presumption. 

Methoucrht  —  what  wild  thinos  dreams  are  I  —  I  was 
present  —  at  what  would  you  imagine  ?  —  at  an  angcJ's 
gossiping. 

Whence  it  came,  or  how  it  came,  or  who  bid  it  come, 
or  whether  it  came  purely  of  its  own  head,  neither  you 
nor  I  know  —  but  there  lay,  sure  enough,  wrapped  in 
its  little  cloudy  swaddling-bands  —  a  Child  Angel. 


THE   CHILD   ANGEL;  A  DREAM.  411 

Sun-threads  —  filmy  beams  —  ran  through  the  celes- 
tial napery  of  what  seemed  its  princely  cradle.  All  the 
winged  orders  hovered  round,  watching  when  the  new- 
born should  open  its  yet  closed  eyes  ;  which,  when  il 
did,  first  one,  and  then  the  other,  —  with  a  solicitude 
and  apprehension,  yet  not  such  as,  stained  with  fear, 
dim  the  expanding  eyelids  of  mortal  infants,  but  as  if  to 
explore  its  path  in  those  its  unhereditary  palaces,  — 
what  an  inextinguishable  titter  that  time  spared  not 
celestial  visages  !  Nor  wanted  there  to  my  seeming,  — 
O  the  inexplicable  simpleness  of  dreams !  bowls  ol 
that  cheering  nectar, 

—  which  mortals  caudle  call  below. 

Nor  were  wanting  faces  of  female  ministrants,  — 
stricken  in  years,  as  it  might  seem,  —  so  dexterous 
were  those  heavenly  attendants  to  counterfeit  kindly 
similitudes  of  earth,  to  greet,  with  terrestrial  child- 
rites  the  young  present,  which  earth  had  made  to 
heaven. 

Then  were  celestial  harpings  heard,  not  in  full  sym- 
phony as  those  by  which  the  spheres  are  tutored ; 
but,  as  loudest  instruments  on  earth  speak  oftentimes, 
muffled ;  so  to  accommodate  their  sound  the  better  to 
the  weak  ears  of  the  imperfect-born.  And,  with  the 
noise  of  those  subdued  soundings,  the  Angelet  sprang 
forth,  fluttering  its  rudiments  of  pinions,  —  but  forth- 
with flao;o;ed  and  was  recovered  into  the  arms  of  those 
full-winffed  antxels.  And  a  wonder  it  was  to  see  how, 
as  years  went  round  in  heaven  —  a  year  in  dreams  is 
as  a  day  —  continually  its  white  shoulders  put  forth 
buds  of  wings,  but  wanting  the  perfect  angelic  nutri- 
ment, anon  was  shorn  of  its  aspiring,  and  fell  fiatterirg, 


412  THE   CHILD   ANGEL;   A  DREAM 

—  still  caught  by  angel  hands,  —  forevei  to  put  forth 
shoots,  and  to  fall  fluttering,  because  its  birth  was  not 
of  the  unmixed  vigor  of  heaven. 

And  a  name  was  given  to  the  Babe  Angel,  and  it 
was  to  be  called  Cie-  Urania,  because  its  production  was 
of  earth  and  heaven. 

And  it  could  not  taste  of  death,  by  reason  of  its 
adoption  into  immortal  palaces ;  but  it  was  to  know 
weakness,  and  reliance,  and  the  shadow  of  human  im- 
becility ;  and  it  went  with  a  lame  gait ;  but  in  its 
goings  it  exceeded  all  mortal  children  in  grace  and 
swiftness.  Then  pity  first  sprang  up  in  angelic 
bosoms ;  and  yearnings  (like  the  human)  touched 
them  at  the  sioht  of  the  immortal  lame  one. 

And  with  pain  did  then  first  those  Intuitive  Es- 
sences, with  pain  and  strife,  to  their  natures,  (not 
grief,)  put  back  their  bright  intelligences,  and  reduce 
their  ethereal  minds,  schooling  them  to  degrees  and 
slower  processes,  so  to  adapt  their  lessons  to  the  grad- 
ual illumination  (as  must  needs  be)  of  the  half-earth- 
born  ;  and  what  intuitive  notices  they  could  not  repel 
(by  reason  tliat  their  nature  is,  to  know  all  things  at 
once),  the  half-heavenly  novice,  by  the  better  part  of 
its  nature,  aspired  to  receive  into  its  understanding  ;  so 
that  Humility  and  Aspiration  went  on  even-paced  in 
the  instruction  of  the  glorious  Amphibium. 

But,  by  reason  that  Mature  Humanity  is  too  gross 
to  breathe  the  air  of  that  super-subtile  region,  its 
portion  was,  and  is,  to  be  a  child  forever. 

And  because  the  human  part  of  it  might  not  press 
mto  the  heart  and  inwards  of  the  palace  of  its  adoption, 
those  fiill-natured  angels  tended  it  by  turns  in  the 
purlieus  of  the  palace,  where  were  shady  groves  and 


THE   CHILD   ANGEL;   A   DREAM.  413 

rivulets,  like  this  green  earth  from  which  it  came  ;  so 
Love,  with  Vokmtary  HumiHty,  waited  upon  the  en- 
tertainment of  the  new-adopted. 

And  myriads  of  years  rolled  round,  (in  dreams  Time 
is  nothing,)  and  still  it  kept,  and  is  to  keep,  perpetual 
childhood,  and  is  the  Tutelar  Genius  of  Childliood 
upon  earth,  and  still  goes  lame  and  lovely. 

By  the  banks  of  the  river  Pison  is  seen,  lone  sitting 
by  the  grave  of  the  terrestrial  Adah,  whom  the  angel 
Nadir  loved,  a  Child;  but  not  the  same  which  I  saw  in 
heaven.  A  mournful  hue  overcasts  its  lineaments ; 
nevertheless  a  correspondency  is  between  the  child  by 
the  grave,  and  that  celestial  orphan,  whom  I  saw 
above  ;  and  the  dimness  of  the  grief  upon  the  heav- 
enly, is  a  shadow  or  emblem  of  that  which  stains  the 
beauty  of  the  terrestrial.  And  this  correspondency  is 
not  to  be  understood  but  by  dreams. 

And  in  the  archives  of  heaven  I  had  grace  to  read, 
how  that  once  the  angel  Nadir,  being  exiled  from  liis 
place  for  mortal  passion,  upspringing  on  the  wings  of 
parental  love,  (such  power  had  parental  love  for  a  mo- 
ment to  suspend  the  else-irrevocable  law,)  appeared 
for  a  brief  instant  in  his  station,  and,  depositing  a 
wondrous  Birth,  straightway  disappeared,  and  the  pal- 
aces knew  him  no  more.  And  this  charge  was  the 
selfsame  Babe,  who  goeth  lame  and  lovely,  —  out 
Adah  sleepeth  by  the  river  Pison. 


414  CONFESSIONS   UF  A  DRUNKARD. 


CONFESSIONS   OF  A  DRUNKARD 

Dehortations  from  the  use  of  strong  liquors  have 
been  the  favorite  topic  of  sober  declaimers  in  all  ages, 
and  have  been  received  with  abundance  of  applause  by 
water-drinking  critics.  But  with  the  patient  himself, 
the  man  that  is  to  be  cured,  unfortunately  their  sound 
has  seldom  prevailed.  Yet  the  evil  is  acknowledged, 
the  remedy  simple.  Abstain.  No  force  can  oblige  a 
man  to  raise  the  glass  to  his  head  against  his  will.  'Tis 
as  easy  as  not  to  steal,  not  to  tell  lies. 

Alas !  the  hand  to  pilfer,  and  the  tongue  to  bear 
false  Matness,  have  no  constitutional  tendency.  These 
are  actions  indifferent  to  them.  At  the  first  instance 
of  the  reformed  will,  they  can  be  brought  off  without 
a  munnur.  The  itching  finger  is  but  a  figure  in 
speech,  and  the  tongue  of  the  liar  can  with  the  same 
natural  delio-ht  sive  forth  useful  truths  with  which  It 
has  been  accustomed  to  scatter  their  pernicious  contra 
ries.     But  when  a  man  has  commenced  sot 

O  pause,  thou  sturdy  moralist,  thou  person  of  stout 
nerves  and  a  strong  head,  whose  liver  is  happily  un- 
touched, and  ere  thy  gorge  riseth  at  the  name  which  I 
have  written,  first  learn  what  the  tidng  is  ;  how  much 
of  compassion,  how  much  of  human  allowance,  thou 
mayest  virtuously  mingle  with  they  disapprobation. 
Trample  not  on  the  ruins  of  a  man.  Exact  not, 
under  so  terrible  a  penalty  as  infamy,  a  resuscitation 
from  a  state  of  death  almost  as  real  as  that  from  which 
Lazarus  rose  not  but  by  a  miracle. 

Begin  a  reformation,  and  custom  will  make  it  easy. 


CONFESSIONS    OF   A    DRUNKARD.  413 

But  what  if  the  beginning  be  dieadflil,  the  first  steps 
not  Hke  cHmbing  a  mountain  but  going  through  fire  ? 
what  if  the  whole  system  must  undergo  a  change  vio- 
lent as  that  which  we  conceive  of  the  mutation  of  form 
in  some  insects  ?  what  if  a  process  comparable  to  flay- 
ing alive  be  to  be  gone  through  ?  is  the  weakness  that 
sinks  under  such  struggles  to  be  confounded  with  the 
pertinacity  which  clings  to  other  vices,  which  have 
induced  no  constitutional  necessity,  no  engagement  of 
the  whole  victim,  body  and  soul  ? 

I  have  known  one  in  that  state,  when  he  has  tried 
to  abstain  but  for  one  evening,  —  though  the  poisonous 
potion  had  long  ceased  to  bring  back  its  first  enchant- 
ments, though  he  was  sure  it  would  rather  deepen 
his  gloom  than  brighten  it,  —  in  the  violence  of  the 
struggle,  and  the  necessity  he  has  felt  of  getting  rid  of 
the  present  sensation  at  any  rate,  I  have  known  him  to 
scream  out,  to  cry  aloud,  for  the  anguish  and  pain  of 
the  strife  within  him. 

Why  should  I  hesitate  to  declare,  that  the  man  of 
whom  I  speak  is  myself?  I  have  no  puling  apology  to 
make  to  mankind.  I  see  them  all  in  one  way  or  an- 
other deviating  from  the  pure  reason.  It  is  to  my  own 
nature  alone  I  am  accountable  for  the  woe  that  I  have 
brought  upon  it. 

I  believe  that  there  are  constitutions,  robust  heads, 
and  iron  insides,  whom  scarce  any  excesses  can  hurt ; 
whom  brandy,  (I  have  seen  them  drink  it  like  wine,) 
at  all  events  whom  wine,  taken  in  ever  so  plentiful  a 
measure,  can  do  no  Avorse  injury  to  than  just  to  nuid- 
dle  their  faculties,  perhaps  never  very  pellucid.  On 
them  this  discourse  is  wasted.  They  would  but  laugh 
at  a  weak  brother,  who  trying  his  strength  with  them, 


416  CONFESSIONS   OF   A  DRUNKARD. 

and  coming  off  foiled  from  the  contest,  would  fain  per- 
suade them  that  such  afjonistic  exercises  are  dano-erous. 
It  is  to  a  very  different  description  of  persons  I  speak. 
It  is  to  the  weak,  the  nervous ;  to  those  who  feel  the 
want  of  some  artificial  aid  to  raise  their  spirits  in  so- 
ciety to  what  is  no  more  than  the  ordinary  pitch  of  all 
around  them  without  it.  This  is  the  secret  of  our 
drinking.  Such  must  fly  the  convivial  board  in  the 
first  instance,  if  they  do  not  mean  to  sell  themselves  for 
term  of  life. 

Twelve  years  ago  I  had  completed  my  six-and-twen- 
tieth  year.  I  had  lived  from  the  period  of  leaving 
school  to  that  time  pretty  much  in  solitude.  My  com- 
panions were  chiefly  books,  or  at  most  one  or  two  liv- 
ing ones  of  my  own  book-loving  and  sober  stamp.  J 
rose  early,  went  to  bed  betimes,  and  the  faculties  which 
God  had  given  me,  I  have  reason  to  think,  did  not  rust 
in  me  unused. 

About  that  time  I  fell  in  with  some  companions  of  a 
different  order.  They  were  men  of  boisterous  spu'its, 
sitters  up  a-nights,  disputants,  drunken ;  yet  seemed  to 
have  something  noble  about  them.  We  dealt  about 
the  wit,  or  what  passes  for  it  after  midnight,  jovially. 
Of  the  quality  called  fancy  I  certainly  possessed  a 
larger  share  than  my  companions.  Encouraged  by 
their  applause,  I  set  up  for  a  professed  joker !  I,  who 
of  all  men  am  least  fitted  for  such  an  occupation,  hav- 
ing, in  addition  to  the  greatest  difficulty  which  I  ex- 
perience at  all  times  of  finding  words  to  express 
my  meaning,  a  natural  nervous  impediment  in  ray 
speech ! 

Reader,  if  you  are  gifted  with  nerves  like  mine, 
aspire  to  any  character  but  that  of  a  wit.     When  you 


CONFESSIONS   OF   A   DRUNKARD.  417 

find  a  tickling  relish  upon  your  tongue  disposing  you 
to  that  sort  of  conversation,  especially  if  you  find  a 
preternatural  flow  of  ideas  setting  in  upon  you  at  the 
sight  of  a  bottle  and  fi-esh  glasses,  avoid  giving  way  to 
it  as  you  would  fly  your  greatest  destruction.  If  you 
cannot  cinish  the  power  of  fancy,  or  that  within  you 
which  you  mistake  for  such,  divert  it,  give  it  some 
other  play.  Write  an  essay,  pen  a  character  or  de- 
scription, —  but  not  as  I  do  now,  with  tears  trickling 
down  your  cheeks. 

To  be  an  object  of  compassion  to  friends,  of  derision 
to  foes ;  to  be  suspected  by  strangers,  stared  at  by 
fools  ;  to  be  esteemed  dull  when  you  cannot  be  witty, 
to  be  applauded  for  witty  when  you  know  that  you 
have  been  dull ;  to  be  called  upon  for  the  extemporane- 
ous exercise  of  that  faculty  Avhich  no  premeditation  can 
give  ;  to  be  spurred  on  to  efforts  which  end  in  con- 
tempt ;  to  be  set  on  to  provoke  mirth  which  procures 
the  procurer  hatred  ;  to  give  pleasure  and  be  paid  with 
squinting  malice ;  to  swallow  draughts  of  life-destroy- 
ing wine  which  are  to  be  distilled  into  airy  breath  to 
tickle  vain  auditors ;  to  mortgage  miserable  morrows 
for  nights  of  madness ;  to  waste  whole  seas  of  time 
upon  those  who  pay  it  back  in  little  inconsiderable 
drops  of  grudging  applause,  —  are  the  wages  of  buf- 
foonery and  death. 

Time,  which  has  a  sure  stroke  at  dissolving  all 
connections  which  have  no  solider  fastening  than 
this  liquid  cement,  more  kind  to  me  than  my  own 
taste  or  penetration,  at  length  opened  my  eyes  to  the 
supposed  qualities  of  my  first  friends.  No  trace  of 
them  is  left  but  in  the  vices  which  they  introduced, 
and   the   habits   they  infixed.      In    them    my   friends 

VOL   III.  27 


418  CONFESSIONS    OF   A  DRUXKARD. 

survive  still,  and  exercise  ample  retribution  for  any 
supposed  infidelity  that  I  may  have  been  guilty  of 
towards  them. 

My  next  more  immediate  companions  were  and  are 
persons  of  such  intrinsic  and  felt  worth,  that  though 
accidentally  their  acquaintance  has  proved  pernicious 
to  me,  I  do  not  know  that  if  the  thing  were  to  do  over 
again,  I  should  have  the  courage  to  eschew  the  mis- 
chief at  the  price  of  forfeiting  the  benefit.  I  came  to 
them  reeking  from  the  steams  of  my  late  overheated 
notions  of  companionship ;  and  the  slightest  fuel  which 
they  unconsciously  afforded,  was  sufficient  to  feed  my 
old  fires  into  a  propensity. 

They  were  no  drinkers,  but,  one  from  professional 
habits,  and  another  from  a  custom  derived  from  his 
father,  smoked  tobacco.  The  devil  could  not  have 
devised  a  more  subtle  trap  to  retake  a  backsliding 
penitent.  The  transition,  from  gulping  down  draughts 
of  liquid  fire  to  puffing  out  innocuous  blasts  of  dry 
smoke,  was  so  like  cheating  him.  But  he  is  too  hard 
for  us  when  we  hope  to  commute.  He  beats  us  at 
barter  ;  and  when  we  think  to  set  off  a  new  failing 
against  an  old  infirmity,  'tis  odds  but  he  puts  the  trick 
upon  us  of  two  for  one.  That  (comparatively)  white 
devil  of  tobacco  brought  with  him  in  the  end  seven 
worse  than  himself. 

It  were  impertinent  to  carry  the  reader  through  all 
the  processes  by  which,  from  smoking  at  first  with  malt 
liqaor,  I  took  my  degrees  throiigh  thin  wines,  through 
stronger  wine  and  water,  through  small  punch,  to  those 
juggling  compositions,  which,  under  the  name  of  mixed 
liquors,  slur  a  great  deal  of  brandy  or  other  poison 
under  less  and  less  water  continually,  until  they  come 


CONFESSIONS    OF   A   DRUNKARD.  419 

next  to  none,  and  so  to  none  at  all.     Bat  it  is  hateftd 
to  disclose  the  secrets  of  my  Tartarus. 

I  should  repel  ray  readers,  from  a  mere  incapacity  of 
believing  me,  were  I  to  tell  them  what  tobacco  has 
been  to  me,  the  drudging  service  which  I  have  paid, 
the  slavery  which  I  have  vowed  to  it.  How,  when  I 
have  resolv(;d  to  quit  it,  a  feeling  as  of  ingratitude  has 
started  up  ;  how  it  has  put  on  personal  claims  and 
made  the  demands  of  a  friend  upon  me.  How  the 
reading  of  it  casually  in  a  book,  as  where  Adams  takes 
his  whiff  in  the  chimney-corner  of  some  inn  in  Joseph 
Andrews,  or  Piscator  in  the  Complete  Angler  breaks 
his  fast  upon  a  morning  pipe  hi  that  delicate  room 
Piscatoribus  Sacrum,  has  in  a  moment  broken  down 
the  resistance  of  weeks.  How  a  pipe  was  ever  in  my 
midnight  path  before  me,  till  the  vision  forced  me  to 
realize  it,  —  how  then  its  ascending  vapors  cm-led,  its 
fracjrance  lulled,  and  the  thousand  delicious  minister- 
ings  conversant  about  it,  employing  every  faculty,  ex- 
tracted the  sense  of  pain.  How  from  illuminating  it 
came  to  darken,  from  a  quick  solace  it  turned  to  a 
negative  relief,  thence  to  a  restlessness  and  dissatisfac- 
tion, thence  to  a  positive  misery.  How,  even  now, 
when  the  whole  secret  stands  confessed  in  all  its  dread- 
ful truth  before  me,  I  feel  myself  linked  to  it  beyond 
the  power  of  revocation.     Bone  of  my  bone 

Persons  not  accustomed  to  examine  the  motives  of 
their  actions,  to  reckon  up  the  countless  nails  that  rivet 
the  chains  of  habit,  or  perhaps  being  bound  by  none  so 
obdurate  as  those  I  have  confessed  to,  may  recoil  from 
this  as  from  an  overcharged  picture.  But  what  short 
of  such  a  bondage  is  it,  which  in  spite  of  protesting 
ft'iends,   a   weeping   wife,   and    a    reprobating   world. 


420  CONFESSIONS   OF  A   DRUNKARD. 

chains  down  many  a  poor  fellow,  of  no    original   in- 
disposition to  goodness,  to  his  pipe  and  his  pot? 

I  have  seen  a  print  after  Correggio,  in  which  three 
female  figures  are  ministering  to  a  man  who  sits  fast 
bound  at  the  root  of  a  tree.  Sensuality  is  soothing 
him,  Evil  Habit  is  nailing  him  to  a  branch,  and 
Repugnance  at  the  same  instant  of  time  is  applying 
a  snake  to  his  side.  In  his  face  is  feeble  delight,  the 
recollection  of  past  rather  than  perception  of  present 
pleasures,  languid  enjoyment  of  evil  with  utter  im- 
becility to  good,  a  Sybaritic  effeminacy,  a  submission 
to  bondage,  the  springs  of  the  will  gone  down  like  a 
broken  clock,  the  sin  and  the  suffering  coinstanta- 
neous,  or  the  latter  forerunning  the  former,  remorse 
preceding  action  —  all  this  represented  in  one  point  of 
time.  When  I  saw  this,  I  admired  the  wonderfiJ  skill 
of  the  painter.  But  when  I  went  away,  I  wept,  be 
cause  I  thought  of  my  own  condition. 

Of  that  there  is  no  hope  that  it  should  ever  change. 
The  waters  have  gone  over  me.  But  out  of  the  black 
depths,  could  I  be  heard,  I  would  cry  out  to  all  those 
who  have  but  set  a  foot  in  the  perilous  flood.  Could 
the  youth,  to  whom  the  flavor  of  his  first  wine  is  deli- 
cious as  the  opening  scenes  of  life  or  the  entering  upon 
some  newly  discovered  paradise,  look  into  my  desola- 
tion, and  be  made  to  understand  what  a  dreary  thing 
it  is  when  a  man  shall  feel  himself  going  down  a  pre- 
cipice with  open  eyes  and  a  passive  will,  —  to  see  his 
destruction  and  have  no  power  to  stop  it,  and  yet  to 
feel  it  all  the  way  emanating  from  himself;  to  per- 
ceive all  goodness  emptied,  out  of  him,  and  yet  not  to 
be  able  to  forget  a  time  wlien  it  was  otherwise ;  to  bear 
about  the  piteous  spectacle  of  his  own  self-ruins ;  — 


CONFESSIONS    of   A  DRUNKARD.  421 

could  lie  see  my  fevered  eye,  feverish  with  last  night's 
drinking,  and  feverishly  looking  for  this  night's  rep- 
etition of  the  folly ;  could  he  feel  the  body  of  the 
death  out  of  which  I  cry  hourly  with  feebler  and 
feebler  outcry  to  be  delivered,  —  it  were  enough  to 
make  him  dash  the  sparkling  beverage  to  the  earth  in 
all  the  pride  of  its  mantling  temptation ;  to  make  him 
clasp  his  teeth, 

and  not  undo  'em 
To  suffer  wet  damnation  to  run  thro'  'em. 

Yea,  but  (methinks  I  hear  somebody  object}  it 
sobriety  be  that  fine  thing  you  would  have  us  to  under- 
stand, if  the  comforts  of  a  cool  brain  are  to  be  preferred 
to  that  state  of  heated  excitement  which  you  describe 
and  deplore,  what  hinders  in  your  instance  that  you  do 
not  return  to  those  habits  from  which  you  would  induce 
others  never  to  swerve  ?  if  the  blessing  be  worth  pre- 
serving, is  it  not  worth  recovering  ? 

Recovering !  —  O  if  a  wish  could  transport  me  back 
to  those  days  of  youth,  when  a  draught  from  the  next 
clear  spring  could  slake  any  heats  which  summer  suns 
and  youthful  exercise  had  power  to  stir  up  in  the  blood, 
how  gladly  would  I  return  to  thee,  pure  element,  the 
drink  of  children,  and  of  childlike  holy  hermit !  In 
my  dreams  I  can  sometimes  fancy  thy  cool  refreshment 
purling  over  my  burning  tongue.  But  my  waking 
stomach  rejects  it.  That  which  refreshes  innocence 
only  makes  me  sick  and  faint. 

But  is  there  no  middle  way  betwixt  total  abstinence 
and  the  excess  which  kills  you?  —  For  your  sake, 
reader,  and  that  you  may  never  attain  to  my  exjjcri- 
ence,  with  pain  I  must  utter  the  drea  Iful  truth,  tliat 
there  is  none,  none  that  I  can  find.     In  my  stage  of 


422  CONFESSIONS    OF   A   DRUNKARD. 

habit,  (I  speak  not  of  habits  less  confirmed — for  some 
of  them  I  believe  the  advice  to  be  most  prudential,)  in 
the  stage  which  I  have  reached,  to  stop  short  of  that 
measure  which  is  sufficient  to  draw  on  torpor  and  sleep, 
the  benumbing  apoplectic  sleep  of  the  drunkard,  is  to 
have  taken  none  at  all.  The  pain  of  the  self-denial  is 
all  one.  And  what  that  is,  I  had  rather  the  reader 
should  believe  on  my  credit,  than  know  from  his  own 
trial.  He  will  come  to  know  it,  whenever  he  shall 
arrive  in  that  state,  in  which,  paradoxical  as  it  may  ap- 
pear, reason  shall  only  visit  Jmn  through  intoxication ; 
for  it  is  a  fearfiil  truth,  that  the  intellectual  faculties  by 
repeated  acts  of  intemperance  may  be  driven  from  their 
orderly  sphere  of  action,  their  clear  daylight  ministries, 
until  they  shall  be  brought  at  last  to  depend,  for  the 
faint  manifestation  of  their  departing  energies,  upon  the 
returning  periods  of  the  fatal  madness  to  which  they 
owe  their  devastation.  The  drinking  man  is  never  less 
himself  than  during  his  sober  intervals.  Evil  is  so  far 
his  good.* 

Behold  me  then,  in  the  robust  period  of  life,  reduced 
to  imbecility  and  decay.  Hear  me  count  my  gains, 
and  the  profits  which  I  have  derived  from  the  mid- 
night cup. 

Twelve  years  ago,  I  was  possessed  of  a  healthy  frame 
of  mind  and  body.  I  was  never  sti'ohg,  but  I  think  my 
constitution  (for  a  weak  one)  was  as  happily  exempt 
from  the  tendency  to  any  malady  as  it  was  possible  to 

*  When  poor  M painted  his  last  picture,  with  a  pencil  in  one  trem- 
bling hand,  and  a  glass  of  brandy  and  water  in  the  other,  his  fingers  owed 
the  comparative  steadiness  with  which  they  were  enabled  to  go  through 
their  task  in  an  imperfect  manner,  to  a  temporary  firmness  derived  from  a 
repetition  of  practices,  the  general  effect  of  which  had  shaken  both  them 
md  him  so  terribly. 


CONFESSIONS    OF   A    DRUNKARD.  423 

be.  I  scarce  knew  what  it  was  to  ail  anything.  Now, 
except  when  I  am  losing  myself  in  a  sea  of  drink,  I  am 
never  free  from  those  uneasy  sensations  in  head  and 
stomach,  which  are  so  much  worse  to  bear  than  any 
definite  pains  or  aches. 

At  that  time  I  was  seldom  in  bed  after  six  in  the 
morning,  summer  and  winter.  I  awoke  refreshed,  and 
seldom  without  some  merry  thoughts  in  my  head,  or 
some  piece  of  a  song  to  welcome  the  new-born  day. 
Now,  the  first  feeling  which  besets  me,  after  stretching 
out  the  hours  of  recumbence  to  their  last  possible  ex- 
tent, is  a  forecast  of  the  wearisome  day  that  lies  before 
me,  with  a  secret  wish  that  I  could  have  lain  on  still, 
or  never  awaked. 

Life  itself,  my  waking  life,  has  much  of  the  con- 
fusion, the  trouble,  and  obscure  perplexity,  of  an  ill 
dream.  In  the  daytime  I  stumble  upon  dark  moun- 
tains. 

Business,  which,  though  never  very  particularly 
adapted  to  my  nature,  yet  as  something  of  necessity 
to  be  gone  through,  and  therefore  best  undertaken  with 
cheerfulness,  I  used  to  enter  upon  with  some  degree  of 
alacrity,  now  wearies,  affrights,  perplexes  me.  I  fancy 
all  sorts  of  discouragements,  and  am  ready  to  give  up 
an  occupation  which  gives  me  bread,  from  a  harassing 
conceit  of  incapacity.  The  slightest  commission  given 
me  by  a  friend,  or  any  small  duty  which  I  have  to  per- 
form for  myself,  as  giving  orders  to  a  tradesman,  &c., 
haunts  me  as  a  labor  impossible  to  be  got  through.  So 
much  the  springs  of  action  are  broken. 

The  same  cowardice  attends  me  in  all  my  inter- 
course with  mankind.  I  dare  not  promise  that  a 
friend's  honor,  or  his  cause,  would  be  safe  in  my  keep- 


424  CONFESSIONS    OF   A   DRUNKARD. 

ing,  if  I  were  put  to  the  expense  of  any  manly  resolu 
tion  in  defending  it.     So  much  the  springs   of  moral 
action  are  deadened  within  me. 

My  favorite  occupations  in  times  past,  now  cease 
to  entertain.  I  can  do  nothing  readily.  Application 
for  ever  so  short  a  time  kills  me.  This  poor  abstract 
of  my  condition  was  penned  at  long  intervals,  with 
scarcely  any  attempt  at  connection  of  thought,  which 
is  now  difficult   to  me. 

The  noble  passages  which  formerly  delighted  me  in 
history  or  poetic  fiction,  now  only  draw  a  few  weak 
tears,  allied  to  dotage-  My  broken  and  dispirited 
nature  seems  to  sink  before  anything  great  and  admi- 
rable. 

I  perpetually  catch  myself  in  tears,  for  any  cause, 
or  none.  It  is  inexpressible  how  much  this  infirmity 
adds  to  a  sense  of  shame,  and  a  general  feeling  of  de- 
terioration. 

These  are  some  of  the  instances,  concerning  which 
I  can  say  with  truth,  that  it  was  not  always  so  with 
me. 

Shall  I  lift  up  the  veil  of  my  weakness  any  farther  ? 
or  is  this  disclosure  sufficient? 

I  am  a  poor  nameless  egotist,  who  have  no  vanity  to 
consult  by  these  Confessions.  I  know  not  whether  1 
shall  be  laughed  at,  or  heard  seriously.  Such  as  they 
are,  I  commend  them  to  the  reader's  attention,  if  he 
find  his  own  case  any  way  touched.  I  have  told  him 
what  I  am  come  to.      Let  him  stop  in  time. 


POPULAR  FALLACIES.  425 


POPULAB  FALLACIES. 


THAT   A   BULLY  IS    ALWAYS   A   COWARD. 

This  axiom  contains  a  principle  of  compensation, 
which  disposes  us  to  admit  the  truth  of  it.  But  there 
is  no  safe  trusting  to  dictionaries  and  definitions.  We 
should  more  willingly  fall  in  with  this  popular  lan- 
guage, if  we  did  not  find  brutality  sometimes  awk- 
wardly coupled  with  valor  in  the  same  vocabulary. 
The  comic  writers,  with  their  poetical  justice,  have 
contributed  not  a  little  to  mislead  us  upon  this  point. 
To  see  a  .hectoring  fellow  exposed  and  beaten  upon  the 
stage,  has  something  in  it  wondei*fully  diverting.  Some 
people's  share  of  animal  spirits  is  notoriously  low  and 
defective.  It  has  not  strength  to  raise  a  vapor,  or 
furnish  out  the  wind  of  a  tolerable  bluster.  These 
love  to  be  told  that  huffing  is  no  part  of  valor.  The 
truest  courase  with  them  is  that  which  is  the  least 
noisy  and  obtrusive.  But  confront  one  of  these  silent 
heroes  with  the  swaggerer  of  real  life,  and  his  con- 
fidence in  the  theory  quickly  vanishes.  Pretensions  do 
not  uniformly  bespeak  non-performance.  A  modest  in- 
offensive deportment  does  not  necessarily  imply  valor ; 
neither  does  the  absence  of  it  justify  us  in  denying  that 
quality.  Hickman  wanted  modesty,  —  we  do  not  mean 
him  of  Clarissa,  —  but  who  ever  doubted  his  courage  ? 
Even  the  poets — upon  Avhom  this  equitable  distribu- 
tion of  qualities  should  be  most  I  inding  —  have  thought 
it  agreeable  to  nature  to  depart  from  the  rvile  upon  oc- 
casion.   Harapha,  in  the  "  Agonistes,"  is  indeed  a  buUj 


426  POPULAR   FALLACIES. 

upon  tlie  received  notions.  Milton  has  made  him  at 
once  a  blusterer,  a  giant,  and  a  dastard.  But  Alman- 
zor,  in  Drjden,  talks  of  driving  armies  singly  before 
him  —  and  does  it.  Tom  Brown  had  a  shrewder  in- 
sight into  this  kind  of  character  than  either  of  his  pre- 
decessors. He  divides  the  palm  more  equably,  and 
allows  his  hero  a  sort  of  dimidiate  preeminence  :  — 
"  Bully  Dawson  kicked  by  half  the  town,  and  half 
the  town  kicked  by  Bully  Dawson."     This  was  true 

distributive  justice. 

II. 

THAT   ILL-GOTTEN    GAIN   NEVER   PROSPERS. 

The  weakest  part  of  mankind  have  this  saying  com- 
monest in  their  mouth.  It  is  the  trite  consolation  ad- 
ministered to  the  easy  dupe,  when  he  has  been  tricked 
out  of  his  money  or  estate,  that  the  acquisition  of  it  will 
do  the  owner  no  good.  But  the  rogues  of  this  world  — 
the  prudenter  part  of  them,  at  least  —  know  better  ; 
and  if  the  observation  had  been  as  true  as  it  is  old, 
would  not  have  failed  by  this  time  to  have  discovered 
it.  They  have  pretty  sharp  distinctions  of  the  fluctuat- 
ing and  the  permanent.  "  Lightly  come,  lightly  go," 
is  a  proverb,  which  they  can  very  well  afford  to  leave, 
when  they  leave  little  else,  to  the  losers.  They  do  not 
always  find  manors,  got  by  rapine  or  chicanery,  in- 
sensibly to  melt  away,  as  the  poets  will  have  it ;  or 
that  all  gold  glides,  like  thawing  snow,  fi'om  the  thief's 
hand  that  grasps  it.  Church  land,  alienated  to  lay 
uses,  was  formerly  denounced  to  have  this  slippciy 
quality.  But  some  portions  of  it  somehow  always 
stuck  so  fast,  that  the  denunciators  have  been  fain  to 
postpone  the  prophecy  of  refundment  to  a  late  pos- 
terity. 


POPULAR   FALLACIES.  427 


THAT   A   MAN   MUST   NOT   LAUGH   AT   HIS   OWN  JEST. 

The  severest  exaction  siu'ely  ever  invented  upon  the 
self-denial  of  poor  human  nature  !  This  is  to  expect  a 
gentleman  to  give  a  treat  without  partaking  of  it ;  to 
sit  esui'ient  at  his  own  table,  and  commend  tlie  flavor 
of  his  venison  upon  the  absurd  strength  of  his  never 
touching  it  himself.  On  the  contrary,  we  love  to  see  a 
wag  taste  his  own  joke  to  his  party  ;  to  watch  a  quirk 
or  a  merry  conceit  flickering  upon  the  lips  some  seconds 
before  the  tongue  is  delivered  of  it.  If  it  be  good, 
fresh,  and  racy  —  begotten  of  the  occasion  ;  if  he  that 
utters  it  never  thought  it  before,  he  is  naturally  the 
first  to  be  tickled  with  it ;  and  any  suppression  of  such 
complacence  we  hold  to  be  churlish  and  insulting. 
What  does  it  seem  to  imply,  but  that  your  company  is 
weak  or  foolish  enough  to  be  moA^ed  by  an  image  or  a 
fancy,  that  shall  stir  you  not  at  all,  or  but  faintly  ? 
This  is  exactly  the  humor  of  the  fine  gentleman  in 
Mandeville,  who,  while  he  dazzles  his  guests  with  the 
display  of  some  costly  toy,  affects  himself  to  "  see 
nothing  considerable  in  it." 


THAT    SUCH    A    ONE  SHOWS  HIS  BREEDING. THAT   IT  IS  EAST 

TO    PERCEIVE   HE    IS   NO    GENTLEMAN. 

A  SPEECH  from  the  poorest  sort  of  people,  which 
always  indicates  that  the  party  vituperated  is  a  gentle- 
man. The  very  fact  which  they  deny  is  that  which 
galls  and  exasperates  them  to  use  this  language.  The 
forbearance  with  which  it  is  usually  received,  is  a  proof 
what  interjn*etation  the  bystander  sets  upon  it.     Of  a 


428  POPULAK   FALLACIES. 

kin  to  this,  and  still  less  politic,  are  the  phras(ss  -with 
which,  in  their  street  rhetoric,  they  ply  one  another 
more  grossly :  —  Se  is  a  poor  creature.  —  He  has  not  a 

rag  to  cover ,  ^^c.  ;  thought  his  last,  we  confess,  is 

more  fi-equently  applied  by  females  to  females.  They 
do  not  perceive  that  the  satire  glances  upon  themselves. 
A  poor  man,  of  all  things  in  the  world,  should  not  up- 
braid an  antagonist  with  poverty.  Are  there  no  other 
topics  —  as,  to  tell  him  his  father  was  hanged,  —  his 

sister,    &c. ,    without    exposing    a    secret,    which 

should  be  kept  snug  between  them  ;  and  doing  an 
affront  to  the  order  to  which  they  have  the  honor 
equally  to  belong?  All  this  while  they  do  not  see 
how  the  wealthier  man  stands  by  and  laughs  in  his 
sleeve  at  both. 

V. 

THAT   THK    POOR   COPY    THE    VICES    OP   THE   RICH. 

A  SMOOTH  text  to  the  letter;  and,  preached  ft'om 
the  pulpit,  is  sure  of  a  docile  audience  from  the  pews 
lined  with  satin.  It  is  twice  sitting  upon  velvet  to  a 
foolish  squire  to  be  told,  that  he  —  and  not  perverse 
nature^  as  the  homilies  would  make  us  imagine,  is  the 
true  cause  of  all  the  irregularities  in  his  parish.  This 
is  striking  at  the  root  of  fi*ee-will  indeed,  and  denying 
the  originality  of  sin  in  any  sense.  But  men  are  not 
such  implicit  sheep  as  this  comes  to.  If  the  abstinence 
from  evil  on  the  part  of  the  upper  classes  is  to  derive 
itself  from  no  higher  principle  than  the  apprehension  of 
setting  ill  patterns  to  the  lower,  we  beg  leave  to  dis- 
charge them  from  all  squeamishness  on  that  score ;  they 
may  even  take  their  fill  of  pleasures,  where  they  can 
find  them.      The   Genius  of  Poverty,  hampered  and 


POPULAR   FALLACIES.  429 

straitened  as  it  is,  is  not  so  barren  of  invention,  bat  it 
can  trade  upon  the  staple  of  its  own  vice,  without 
drawing  upon  their  capitah  The  poor  are  not  quite 
such  servile  imitators  as  they  take  them  for.  Some  of 
them  are  very  clever  artists  in  their  way.  Here  and 
there  we  find  an  original.  .  Who  taught  the  poor  to 
steal,  to  pilfer?  They  did  not  go  to  the  great  for 
schoolmasters  in  these  faculties  surely.  It  is  well  if  in 
some  vices  they  allow  us  to  be  —  no  copyists.  In  no 
other  sense  is  it  true  that  the  poor  copy  them,  than  as 
servants  may  be  said  to  take  after  their  masters  and 
mistinesses,  when  they  succeed  to  their  reversionary  cold 
meats.  If  the  master,  from  indisposition  or  some  other 
cause,  neglect  his  food,  the  servant  dines  notwithstand- 
ing. 

"  O,  but  (some  will  say)  the  force  of  example  is 
great."  We  knew  a  lady  who  was  so  scrupulous  on 
this  head,  that  she  would  put  up  with  the  calls  of  the 
most  impertinent  visitor,  rather  than  let  her  servant  say 
she  was  not  at  home,  for  fear  of  teaching  her  maid  to 
tell  an  untruth ;  and  this  in  the  very  face  of  the  fact, 
which  she  knew  well  enough,  that  the  wench  was  one 
of  the  greatest  liars  upon  the  earth  without  teaching ; 
so  much  so,  that  her  mistress  possibly  never  heard  two 
words  of  consecutive  truth  from  her  in  her  life.  But 
nature  must  go  for  nothing :  example  must  be  every- 
thing. This  liar  in  grain,  who  never  opened  her 
mouth  without  a  lie,  must  be  guarded  against  a  remote 
inference,  wliicli  she  (pretty  casuist !)  might  possibly 
draw  from  a  form  of  words  —  literally  false,  but  essen- 
tially deceiving  no  one  —  that  under  some  circum- 
stances a  fib  might  not  be  so  exceedingly  sinful  —  a 
fiction,  too,  not  at  all  in  her  own  waj'',  or  one  that  she 


430  POPULAR  FALLACIES. 

could  be  suspected  of  adopting,  for  few  servunt-weiichea 
care  to  be  denied  to  visitors. 

This  word  example  reminds  us  of  another  fine  word 
which  is  in  use  upon  these  occasions  —  encouragement. 
"  People  in  our  sphere  must  not  be  thought  to  give 
encouragement  to  such  proceedings."-  To  such  a  fran- 
tic height  is  this  principle  capable  of  being  carried,  that 
we  have  known  individuals  who  have  thought  it  within 
the  scope  of  their  influence  to  sanction  despair,  and  give 
eclat  to  —  suicide.  A  domestic  in  the  family  of  a 
county  member  lately  deceased,  from  love,  or  some 
unknown  cause,  cut  his  throat,  but  not  successfully. 
The  poor  fellow  was  otherwise  much  loved  and  re- 
spected ;  and  great  interest  was  used  in  his  behalf, 
upon  his  recovery,  that  he  might  be  permitted  to  retain 
his  place ;  his  word  being  first  pledged,  not  without 
some  substantial  sponsors  to  promise  for  him,  that  the 
like  should  never  happen  again.  His  master  was  in- 
clinable to  keep  him,  but  his  mistress  thought  other- 
wise ;  and  John  in  the  end  was  dismissed,  her  ladyship 
declaring  that  she  "  could  not  think  of  encouraging 
any  sucli  doings  in  the  county." 


VI. 

THAT  ENOUGH  IS  AS  GOOD  AS  A  FEAST. 

Not  a  man,  woman,  or  child,  in  ten  miles  round 
Guildliall,  who  really  believes  this  saying.  The  in- 
ventor of  it  did  not  believe  it  himself.  It  was  made  in 
revenge  by  somebody,  who  was  disappointed  of  a  regale. 
It  is  a  vile  cold-scrag-of-mutton  sophism ;  a  lie  palmed 
upon  the  palate,  wliich  knows  better  things.  If  nothing 
else  could  be  said  for  a  feast,  this  is  sufficient,  that  from 


POPULAR  FALLACIES.  431 

the  superflux  there  is  usually  something  left  for  the 
next  day.  Morally  interpreted,  it  belongs  to  a  class  of 
proverbs  which  have  a  tendency  to  make  us  undervalue 
money.  Of  this  cast  are  those  notable  observations, 
that  money  is  not  health ;  riches  cannot  purchase 
everything :  the  metaphor  which  makes  gold  to  be 
mere  muck,  with  the  morality  which  traces  fine  cloth- 
ing to  the  sheep's  back,  and  denounces  pearl  as  the 
unhandsome  excretion  of  an  oyster.  Hence,  too,  the 
phrase  which  imputes  dirt  to  acres  —  a  sophistry  so 
barefaced,  that  even  the  literal  sense  of  it  is  true  only 
in  a  wet  season.  This,  and  abundance  of  similar  sage 
saws  assuming  to  inculcate  content,  we  verily  believe  to 
have  been  the  invention  of  some  cunning  borrower, 
who  had  designs  upon  the  purse  of  his  wealthier  neigh- 
bor, which  he  could  only  hope  to  carry  by  force  of 
these  verbal  jugglings.  Translate  any  one  of  these 
sayings  out  of  the  artful  metonymy  which  envelopes 
it,  and  the  trick  is  apparent.  Goodly  legs  and  shoul- 
ders of  mutton,  exhilarating  cordials,  books,  pictures, 
the  opportunities  of  seeing  foreign  countries,  independ- 
ence, heart's  ease,  a  man's  own  time  to  himself,  are 
not  muck  —  however  we  may  be  pleased  to  scandalize 
with  that  appellation  the  faithful  metal  that  provides 
them  for  us. 


OF   TWO   DISPUTANTS   THE   WARMEST   13   GENEKALLY   IN   THE 
WRONG. 

Our  experience  would  lead  us  to  quite  an  opposite 
conclusion.  Temper,  indeed,  is  no  test  of  truth ;  but 
warmth  and  earnestness  are  a  proof  at  least  of  a  man's 
own  convi(^iion  of  the  rectitude  of  that  which  he  main- 


432  POPULAR   FALLACIES. 

tains.  Coolness  is  as  often  the  result  of  an  unprincipled 
indifference  to  truth  or  falsehood,  as  of  a  sober  confi- 
dence in  a  man's  own  side  in  a  dispute.  Nothing  is 
more  insulting  sometimes  than  the  appearance  of  this 
philosophic  temper.  There  is  little  Titubus,  the  stam- 
mering law-stationer  in  Lincoln's  Inn,  —  we  have  sel- 
dom known  this  shrewd  little  fellow  engaged  in  an 
armiment  where  we  were  not  convinced  he  had  the 
best  of  it,  if  his  tongue  would  but  fairly  have  seconded 
him.  When  he  has  been  spluttering  excellent  broken 
sense  for  an  hour  tocrether,  writhino;  and  laboring  to  be 
delivered  of  the  point  of  dispute,  —  the  very  gist  of  the 
controversy  knocking  at  his  teeth,  which  like  some 
obstinate  iron-o;rating  still  obstructed  its  deliverance,  — 
his  puny  fi'ame  convulsed,  and  face  reddening  all  over 
at  an  unfairness  in  the  logic  which  he  wanted  articula- 
tion to  expose,  it  has  moved  our  gall  to  see  a  smooth 
portly  felloAv  of  an  adversary,  that  cared  not  a  button 
for  the  merits  of  the  question,  by  merely  laying  his 
hand  upon  the  head  of  the  stationer,  and  desiring  him 
to  be  calm^  (your  tall  disputants  have  always  the  ad- 
vantage,) with  a  provoking  sneer  carry  the  argument 
clean  from  him  in  the  opinion  of  all  the  bystanders, 
who  have  gone  away  clearly  convinced  that  Titubus 
must  have  been  in  the  wrong,  because  he  was  in  a  pas- 
sion ;  and  that  Mr. ,  meaning  his  opponent,  is  one 

of  the  fairest  and  at  the  same  time  one  of  the  most  dis- 
passionate arguers  breathing. 


POPULAR  FALLACIES.  433 


THAT     VERBAL    ALLUSIONS    ARE    NOT    WIT,    BECAUSE    THEY 
WILL   NOT    BEAR   A   TRANSLATION. 

The  same  might  be  said  of  the  wittiest  local  allu- 
sions.  A  custom  is  sometimes  as  difficult  to  explain 
to  a  foreigner  as  a  pun.  What  Avould  become  of  a 
great  part  of  the  wit  of  the  last  age  if  it  were  tried 
by  this  test  ?  How  would  certain  topics,  as  alder- 
manity,  cuckoldiy,  have  sounded  to  a  Terentian  audi- 
tory, though  Terence  himself  had  been  alive  to  translate 
them?  Senator  urhanus  with  Carruca  to  boot  for  a 
synonyme,  would  but  faintly  have  done  the  business. 
Words,  involving  notions,  are  hard  enough  to  render ; 
it  is  too  much  to  expect  us  to  translate  a  sound,  ana 
give  an  elegant  version  to  a  jingle.  The  Virgilian 
harmony  is  not  translatable,  but  by  substituting  har- 
monious sounds  in  another  language  for  it.  To  Latin- 
ize a  pun,  we  must  seek  a  pun  in  Latin,  that  will 
answer  to  it ;  as,  to  give  an  idea  of  the  double  endings 
in  Hudibras,  we  must  have  recourse  to  a  similar  prac- 
tice in  tlie  old  monkish  doggerel.  Dennis,  the  fiercest 
oppugner  of  puns  in  ancient  or  modern  times,  professes 
himself  highly  tickled  with  the  "  a  stick,"  chiming  to 
"  ecclesiastic."  Yet  what  is  this  but  a  species  of  pun,  a 
verbal  consonance  ? 


THAT   THE    WORST   PUNS    ARE   THE    BEST. 

If  by  worst  be  only  meant  the  most  far-fetched  and 
startling,  we  agree  to  it.  A  pun  is  not  bound  by  the 
laws  which  limit  nicer  wit.  It  is  a  pistol  let  off  at 
the  ear  ;  not  a  feather  to  tickle  the  intellect.     It  is  an 

VOL.  III.  28 


434  POPULAR    FALLACIES 

antic  wliich  does  not  stand  upon  manners,  but  comes 
bounding  into  the  presence,  and  does  not  sliow  tlie  less 
comic  for  being  dragged  in  sometimes  by  tlie  liead  and 
shoulders.  What  though  it  limp  a  little,  or  prove  de- 
fective in  one  leg?  —  all  the  better.  A  pun  may  easily 
be  too  curiovis  and  artificial.  Who  has  not  at  one  time 
or  other  been  at  a  party  of  professors,  (himself  perhaps 
an  old  offender  in  that  line,)  where,  after  ringing  a 
round  of  the  most  ingenious  conceits,  every  man  con- 
tributing his  shot,  and  some  there  the  most  expert 
shooters  of  the  day  ;  after  making  a  poor  word  run  the 
gauntlet  till  it  is  ready  to  drop  ;  after  hunting  and 
winding  it  through  all  the  possible  ambages  of  similar 
sounds  ;  after  squeezing,  and  hauling,  and  tugging  at  it, 
till  the  very  milk  of  it  will  not  yield  a  drop  further,  — - 
suddenly  some  obscure,  unthought-of  fellow  in  a  corner, 
who  was  never  'prentice  to  the  trade,  whom  the  com- 
pany for  very  pity  passed  over,  as  we  do  by  a  known 
poor  man  when  a  money-subscription  is  going  round, 
no  one  calling  upon  him  for  his  quota,  —  has  all  at  once 
come  out  with  something  so  whimsical,  yet  so  pertinent; 
so  brazen  in  its  pretensions,  yet  so  impossible  to  be  de- 
nied ;  so  exquisitely  good,  and  so  deploi^ably  bad,  at  the 
same  time,  —  that  it  has  proved  a  Robin  Hood's  shot ; 
anything  ulterior  to  that  is  despaired  of;  and  the  party 
breaks  up,  unanimously  voting  it  to  be  the  very  worst 
(that  is,  best)  pvm  of  the  evening.  This  species  of  wit 
is  the  better  for  not  being  perfect  in  all  its  parts.  What 
it  gains  in  completeness,  it  loses  in  naturalness.  The 
more  exactly  it  satisfies  the  critical,  the  less  hold  It  has 
upon  some  other  faculties.  The  puns  which  are  most 
entertaining  are  those  which  will  least  bear  an  analysis. 
Of  this  kind  is  the  following,  recorded  with  a  sort  of 
stigma,  in  one  of  Swift's  Miscellanies. 


POPULAR  FALLACIES.  435 

An  Oxford  scholar,  meeting  a  porter  who  was  carry- 
ing a  hare  through  the  streets,  accosts  him  witli  this  ex- 
traordinary question  :  "  Pritliee,  friend,  is  that  tliy  own 
hare,  or  a  wig  ?  " 

There  is  no  excusing  this,  and  no  resisting  it.  A 
man  might  blur  ten  sides  of  paper  in  attempting  a  de 
fence  of  it  against  a  critic  who  should  be  laughter-proof. 
The  quibble  in  itself  is  not  considerable.  It  is  only  a 
new  turn  given  by  a  little  false  pronunciation,  to  a  very 
common,  though  not  very  courteous  inquiry.  Put  by 
one  gentleman  to  another  at  a  dinner-party,  it  would 
have  been  vapid  ;  to  the  mistress  of  the  house,  it  would 
have  shown  much  less  wit  than  rudeness.  We  must 
take  in  the  totality  of  time,  place,  and  person  ;  the  pert 
look  of  the  inquiring  scholar,  the  desponding  looks  of 
the  puzzled  porter  ;  the  one  stopping  at  leisure,  the 
other  hurrying  on  with  his  burden  ;  the  innocent 
though  rather  abrupt  tendency  of  the  first  member  of 
the  question,  with  the  utter  and  inextricable  irrelevancy 
of  the  second  ;  the  place  —  a  public  street  not  favorable 
to  frivolous  investigations  ;  the  affrontive  quality  of  the 
primitive  inquiry  (the  common  question)  invidiously 
transferred  to  the  derivative  (the  new  turn  given  to  it) 
in  the  implied  satire  ;  namely,  that  few  of  that  tribe 
are  expected  to  eat  of  the  good  things  which  they 
carry,  they  being  in  most  countries  considered  rather 
as  the  temporary  trustees  than  owners  of  such  dainties, 
—  which  the  fellow  was  beginning  to  understand  ;  but 
then  the  wig  again  comes  in,  and  he  can  make  nothing 
of  it ;  all  put  together  constitute  a  picture  :  Hogarth 
could  have  made  it  intelligible  on  canvas. 

Yet  nine  out  of  ten  critics  will  pronounce  this  a  very 
bad  pun,  because  of  the  defectiveness  in  the  concluding 


436  POPULAR   FALLACIES 

member,  which  is  its  very  beauty,  and  constitutes  the 
surprise.  The  same  person  shall  cry  up  for  admirable 
the  cold  quibble  from  Virgil  about  the  broken  Cre- 
mona ;  *  because  it  is  made  out  in  all  its  parts,  and 
leaves  nothino-  to  the  imagination.  We  venture  to  call 
it  cold ;  because,  of  thousands  who  have  admired  it,  it 
would  be  difficult  to  find  one  who  has  heartily  chuckled 
at  it.  As  appealing  to  the  judgment  merely,  (setting 
the  risible  faculty  aside,)  we  must  pronounce  it  a  mon- 
ument of  curious  felicity.  But  as  some  stories  are  said 
to  be  too  good  to  be  true,  it  may  with  equal  tnith  be 
asserted  of  this  biverbal  allusion,  that  it  is  too  good  to 
be  natural.  One  cannot  help  suspecting  that  the  inci- 
dent was  invented  to  fit  the  line.  It  would  have  been 
better  had  it  been  less  perfect.  Like  some  Virgilian 
hemistichs,  it  has  suffered  by  filling  up.  The  nimium 
Vicina  was  enough  in  conscience ;  the  Cremonce  after- 
wards loads  it.  It  is  in  fact  a  double  pun  ;  and  we 
have  always  observed  that  a  superfoetation  in  this  sort 
of  wit  is  dangerous.  When  a  man  has  said  a  good 
thing,  it  is  seldom  politic  to  follow  it  up.  We  do  not 
care  to  be  cheated  a  second  time  ;  or,  perhaps,  the 
mind  of  man  (with  reverence  be  it  spoken)  is  not  capa- 
cious enough  to  lodge  two  puns  at  a  time.  The  im- 
pression, to  be  forcible,  must  be  simultaneous  and  un- 
divided. 

X. 

THAT   HANDSOME   IS    THAT   HANDSOME    DOES. 

Those  who  use  this  proverb  can  never  have  seen 
Mrs.  Conrady. 

The  soul,  if  we  may  believe  Plotinus,  is  a  ray  from 

*  Swift, 


POPULAR   FALLACIES.  437 

tlie  cel(;stial  beauty.  As  she  partakes  rnoi'e  or  less  of 
this  heavenly  light,  she  informs,  with  corresponding 
characters,  the  fleshly  tenement  which  she  chooses,  and 
frames  to  herself  a  suitable  mansion. 

All  which  only  proves  that  the  soul  of  Mrs.  Con- 
rady,  in  her  preexistent  state,  was  no  great  judge  of 
architecture. 

To  the  same  effect,  in  a  H\Tnn  in  honor  of  Beauty, 
divine  Spenser  platonizing,  sings  :  — 


Every  spidt  as  it  is  more  pure, 


And  hath  in  it  the  more  of  heavenly  light, 
So  it  the  fairer  body  doth  procure 
To  habit  in,  and  it  more  fairly  dight 
With  cheerful  grace  and  amiable  sight. 
For  of  the  soul  the  body  form  doth  take : 
For  soul  is  form  and  doth  the  body  make. 

But  Spenser  it  is  clear  never  saw  Mrs.  Conrady. 

These  poets,  we  find,  are  no  safe  guides  in  philoso- 
phy ;  for  here,  in  his  very  next  stanza  but  one,  is  a 
saving  clause,  which  throws  us  all  out  again,  and  leaves 
us  as  much  to  seek  as  ever  :  — 

Yet  oft  it  falls,  that  many  a  gentle  mind 
Dwells  in  deformed  tabernacle  drown'd, 
Either  by  chance,  against  the  course  of  kind, 
Or  through  unaptness  in  the  substance  found, 
Which  it  assumed  of  some  stubborn  ground, 
That  will  not  yield  unto  her  form's  direction. 
But  is  performed  with  some  foul  imperfection. 

From   which   it   woukl  follow,  that  Spenser  had  seen 
somebody  like  Mrs.  Conrady. 

The  spirit  of  this  good  lady  —  her  previous  anima  — 
must  have  stumbled  upon  one  of  these  untoward  taber- 
nacles which  he  speaks  of.  A  more  rebellious  com- 
modity of  clay  for  a  ground,  as  the  poet  calls  it,  no 
gentle  mind  —  and  sure  her's  is  one  of  the  gentlest  — 
ever  had  to  deal  with. 


438  POPULAR   FALLACIES. 

Pondering   upon  her  inexplicable  visage, — inexpli- 
cable, we  mean,  but  by  this  modification  of  the  theory 

—  we  have  come  to  a  conclusion  that,  if  one  must  be 
plain,  it  is  better  to  be  plain  all  over,  than  amidst  a 
tolerable  residue  of  features,  to  hang  out  one  that  shall 
be  exceptionable.  No  one  can  say  of  Mrs.  Conrady's 
countenance  that  it  would  be  better  if  she  had  but  a 
nose.  It  is  impossible  to  pull  her  to  pieces  in  this 
manner.  We  have  seen  the  most  malicious  beauties 
of  her  own  sex  baffled  in  the  attempt  at  a  selection. 
The  tout^ensemble  defies  particularizing.  It  is  too  com- 
plete —  too  consistent,  as  we  may  say  —  to  admit  of 
these  invidious  reservations.  It  is  not  as  if  some 
Apelles  had  picked  out  here  a  lip  —  and  there  a  chin 

—  out  of  the  collected  ugliness  of  Greece,  to  frame  a 
model  by.  It  is  a  symmetrical  whole.  We  challenge 
the  minutest  connoisseur  to  cavil  at  any  part  or  parcel 
of  the  countenance  in  question ;  to  say  that  this,  or 
that,  is  improperly  placed.  We  are  convinced  that 
true  ugliness,  no  less  than  is  affirmed  of  true  beauty,  is 
the  result  of  harmony.  Like  that  too  it  reigns  without 
a  competitor.  No  one  ever  saw  Mrs.  Conrady,  without 
pronouncing  her  to  be  the  plainest  woman  that  he  ever 
met  with  in  the  course  of  his  life.  The  first  time  that 
you  are  indulged  with  a  sight  of  her  face,  is  an  era  in 
your  existence  ever  after.  You  are  glad  to  have  seen 
it — like  Stonehenge.  No  one  can  pretend  to  forget  it. 
No  one  ever  apologized  to  her  for  meeting  her  in  the 
street  on  such  a  day  and  not  knowing  her ;  the  pretext 
would  be  too  bare.  Nobody  can  mistake  her  for 
another.  Nobody  can  say  of  her,  "  I  think  I  have 
seen  that  face  someAvhere,  but  I  cannot  call  to  mind 
where."     You  must  remember  that  in  such  a  parlor  it 


POPL'LAi:    FALLACIES  439 

first  struck  you  —  like  a  bust.  You  wondered  where 
the  owner  of  the  house  had  picked  it  up.  You  won- 
dered more  when  it  began  to  move  its  lips  —  so  mildly 
too !  No  one  ever  thought  of  asking  her  to  sit  for  her 
picture.  Lockets  are  for  remembrance ;  and  it  would 
be  clearly  superfluous  to  hang  an  image  at  your  heart, 
which,  once  seen,  can  never  be  out  of  it.  It  is  not  a 
mean  face  either ;  its  entire  originality  precludes  that. 
Neither  is  it  of  that  order  of  plain  faces  which  improve 
upon  acquaintance.  Some  very  good  but  ordinary 
people,  by  an  unwearied,  perseverance  in  good  offices, 
put  a  cheat  upon  our  eyes  ;  juggle  our  senses  out  of 
their  natural  impressions ;  and  set  us  upon  discovering 
good  indications  in  a  countenance,  which  at  first  sight 
promised  nothing  less.  We  detect  gentleness,  which 
had  escaped  us,  lurking  about  an  underlip.  But  when 
Mrs.  Conrady  has  done  you  a  service,  her  face  remains 
the  same ;  when  she  has  done  you  a  thousand,  and  you 
know  that  she  is  ready  to  double  the  number,  still  it  is 
that  individual  face.  Neither  can  you  say  of  it,  that  it 
would  be  a  good  face  if  it  were  not  marked  by  the 
small-pox,  —  a  compliment  which  is  always  more  ad- 
missive than  excusatory,  —  for  either  Mrs.  Coni'ady 
never  had  the  small-pox,  or,  as  we  say,  took  it  kindly. 
No,  it  stands  upon  its  own  merits  fairly.  There  it  is. 
It  is  her  mark,  her  token ;  that  which  she  is  known  by. 


THAT    WE   MUST   NOT    LOOK    A    GIFT    HORSE   IN    THE    MOUTH. 

Nor  a  lady's  age  in  the  parish  register.  We  hope 
ive  have  more  delicacy  than  to  do  either ;  but  some 
feces  spare  us    the  trouble    of  these   dental   inquiries. 


440  POPULAR   FALLACIES. 

And  what  if  the  beast,  which  my  friend  would  force 
upon  my  acceptance,  prove,  upon  the  face  of  it,  a  sorry 
Rosinante,  a  lean,  ill-favored  jade,  whom  no  gentleman 
could  think  of  setting  up  in  his  stables  ?  Must  I, 
rather  than  not  be  obliged  to  my  friend,  make  her  a 
companion  to  Eclipse  or  Lightfoot  ?  A  horse-giver,  no 
more  than  a  horse-seller,  has  a  right  to  palm  his 
spavined  article  upon  us  for  good  ware.  An  equivalent 
is  expected  in  either  case  ;  and,  with  my  own  good 
will,  I  would  no  more  be  cheated  out  of  my  thanks 
than  out  of  my  money.  Some  people  have  a  knack  of 
putting  upon  you  -gifts  of  no  real  value,  to  engage  you 
to  substantial  gratitude.  We  thank  them  for  nothing. 
Our  friend  Mitis  carries  this  humor  of  never  refusing  a 
present  to  the  very  point  of  absurdity  —  if  it  were  pos- 
sible to  couple  the  ridiculous  with  so  much  mistaken 
delicacy,  and  real  good-nature.  Not  an  apartment  in 
his  fine  house  (and  he  has  a  true  taste  in  household 
decorations),  but  is  stuffed  up  with  some  preposterous 
print  or  mirror,  —  the  worst  adapted  to  his  panels  that 
may  be,  —  the  presents  of  his  friends  that  know  his 
weakness ;  while  his  noble  Vandykes  are  displaced, 
to  make  room  for  a  set  of  daubs,  the  work  of  some 
wretched  artist  of  his  acquaintance,  who,  having  had 
them  returned  upon  his  hands  for  bad  likenesses,  finds 
his  account  in  bestowing  them  here  gratis.  The  good 
creature  has  not  the  heart  to  mortify  the  painter  at  the 
expense  of  an  honest  reflisal.  It  is  pleasant  (if  it  did 
not  vex  one  at  the  same  time)  to  see  him  sitting  in 
his  dining  parlor  ;  surrounded  with  obscure  aunts  and 
I'ousins  to  God  knows  whom,  Avhile  the  true  Lady 
Marys  and  Lady  Bettys  of  his  own  honorable  family, 
hi  favor  to  these  adopted  frights,  are  consigned  t^  the 


POPULAR   FALLACIES.  441 

staircase  and  the  lumber-room.  In  like  manner  his 
goodly  shelves  are  one  by  one  stripped  of  his  favorite 
old  authors,  to  give  place  to  a  collection  of  presentation 
copies  —  the  flour  and  bran  of  modem  poetry.  A  pre- 
sentation coj)y,  reader,  —  if  haply  you  are  yet  innocent 
of  such  favors, — is  a  copy  of  a  book  which  does  not 
sell,  sent  you  by  the  author,  with  his  foolish  autograph 
at  the  beginning  of  it ;  for  which,  if  a  stranger,  he  only 
demands  your  friendship  ;  if  a  brother  author,  he  ex- 
pects from  you  a  book  of  yours,  which  does  sell,  in 
return.  We  can  speak  to  experience,  having  by  us  a 
tolerable  assortment  of  these  gift-horses.  Not  to  ride  a 
metaphor  to  death  —  we  are  willing  to  acknowledge, 
that  in  some  gifts  there  is  sense.  A  du})licate  out  of  a 
friend's  library  (where  he  has  more  than  one  copy  of  a 
rare  author)  is  intelligible.  There  are  favors  short  of 
the  pecuniary  —  a  thing  not  fit  to  be  hinted  at  among 
gentlemen  —  which  confer  as  much  grace  upon  the  ac- 
ceptor as  the  offerer;  the  kind,  we  confess,  which  is 
most  to  our  palate,  is  of  those  little  conciliatory  mis- 
sives, which  for  their  vehicle  generally  choose  a  ham- 
per, —  little  odd  presents  of  game,  fruit,  perhaps  wine, 
—  though  it  is  essential  to  the  delicacy  of  the  latter  that 
it  be  home-made.  We  love  to  have  our  friend  in  the 
country  sitting  thus  at  our  table  by  proxy  ;  to  appre- 
hend his  presence  (though  a  hundred  miles  may  be 
between  us)  by  a  turkey,  whose  goodly  aspect  reflects 
to  us  his  "  plump  corpusculum ; "  to  taste  him  in 
grouse  or  woodcock  ;  to  feel  him  gliding  down  in  the 
toast  peculiar  to  the  latter ;  to  concorporate  him  in  a 
slice  of  Canterbury  brawn.  This  is  indeed  to  have 
him  within  ourselves;  to  know  him  intimately;  such 
participation  is  methinks  unitive,  as  the  old  theologians 


442  POPULAR   FALLACIES. 

phrase  it.  For  tliese  considerations  we  should  be  sorry 
if  certain  restrictive  regulations,  which  are  thought  to 
bear  hard  upon  the  peasantry  of  this  country,  were 
entirely  done  away  with.  A  hare,  as  the  law  now 
stands,  makes  many  friends.  Caius  conciliates  Titius 
(knowing  his  gout)  with  a  leash  of  partridges.  Titius 
(suspecting  his  partiality  for  them)  passes  them  to 
Lucius  ;  who  in  his  turn,  preferring  his  friend's  relish 
to  his  own,  makes  them  over  to  Marcius  ;  till  in  their 
ever-widening  progress,  and  round  of  unconscious  cir- 
cummigration,  they  distribute  the  seeds  of  harmony 
over  half  a  parish.  We  are  well  disposed  to  this  kind 
of  sensible  remembrances  ;  and  are  the  less  apt  to  be 
taken  by  those  little  airy  tokens  —  impalpable  to  the 
palate  —  which,  under  the  names  of  rings,  lockets, 
keepsakes,  amuse  some  people's  fancy  mightily.  We 
could  never  away  with  these  indigestible  trifles.  They 
are  the  very  kickshaws  and  foppery  of  friendship. 


THAT  HOME  IS  HOME,  THOUGH  IT  IS  NEVER  SO  HOMELY. 

Homes  there  are,  we  are  sure,  that  are  no  homes  ; 
the  home  of  the  very  poor  man,  and  another  which 
we  shall  speak  to  presently.  Crowded  places  of  cheap 
entertainment,  and  the  benches  of  ale-houses,  if  they 
could  s])eak,  might  bear  mournful  testimony  to  the 
first.  To  them  the  very  poor  man  resorts  for  an  image 
of  the  home,  which  he  cannot  find  at  home.  For  a 
starved  grate,  and  a  scanty  firing,  tliat  is  not  enough 
to  keep  alive  the  natural  heat  in  the  fingers  of  so  many 
shivering  children  with  their  mother,  he  finds  in  the 
depths  'i)f  winter  always  a  blazing  hearth,  and  a  hob 


POPULAR   FALLACIES.  443 

to  warm  his  pittance  of  heer  by.  Instead  of  the  clam- 
ors of  a  wife,  made  gaunt  by  famishing,  he  meets  with 
a  cheei'ftil  attendance  beyond  the  merits  of  the  trifle 
which  he  can  afford  to  spend.  He  has  companions 
which  his  home  denies  him,  for  the  very  poor  man  has 
no  visitors.  He  can  look  into  the  goings  on  of  the 
world,  and  speak  a  little  to  politics.  At  home  there 
are  no  politics  stirring,  but  the  domestic.  All  interests, 
real  or  imaginary,  all  topics  that  should  expand  the 
mind  of  man,  and  connect  him  to  a  sympathy  with 
general  existence,  are  crushed  in  the  absorbing  consid- 
eration of  food  to  be  obtained  for  the  family.  Beyond 
the  price  of  bread,  news  is  senseless  and  impertinent. 
At  home  there  is  no  larder.  Here  there  is  at  least  a 
show  of  plenty  ;  and  while  he  cooks  his  lean  scrap  of 
butcher's  meat  before  the  common  bars,  or  munches 
his  humbler  cold  viands,  his  relishing  bread  and  cheese 
with  an  onion,  in  a  corner,  where  no  one  reflects  upon 
his  poverty,  he  has  a  sight  of  the  substantial  joint  pro- 
viding for  the  landlord  and  his  family.  He  takes  an 
interest  in  the  dressing  of  it ;  and  while  he  assists  in 
removing  the  trivet  from  the  fire,  he  feels  that  there 
is  such  a  thing  as  beef  and  cabbage,  Avhicli  he  was  be- 
ginning to  forget  at  home.  All  this  while  he  deserts 
his  wife  and  children.  But  what  wife,  and  what  chil- 
dren ?  Prosperous  men,  who  object  to  this  desertion, 
image  to  themselves  some  clean  contented  family  like 
that  which  they  go  home  to.  But  look  at  the  counte- 
nance of  the  poor  wives  who  follow  and  persecute  their 
goodman  to  the  door  of  the  public-house,  which  he  is 
a.bout  to  enter,  when  something  like  shame  would  re- 
strain him,  if  stronger  misery  did  not  induce  him  to 
pass  the   threshold.      That  face,  ground  by  want,  in 


444  POPULAR   FALLACIES. 

which  every  cheerfiil,  every  conversable  lineamert  has 
been  long  effaced  by  misery,  —  is  that  a  face  to  stay 
at  home  with  ?  is  it  more  a  woman,  or  a  wild  cat  ? 
alas  !  it  is  the  face  of  the  wife  of  his  youth,  that  once 
smiled  upon  him.  It  can  smile  no  longer.  What 
comforts  can  it  share  ?  what  burdens  can  it  lighten  ? 
Oh,  'tis  a  fine  thing  to  talk  of  the  humble  meal  shared 
together !  But  what  if  there  be  no  bread  in  the  cup- 
board ?  The  innocent  prattle  of  his  chddren  takes 
out  the  sting  of  a  man's  poverty.  But  the  children  of 
the  very  poor  do  not  prattle.  It  is  none  of  the  least 
frightful  features  in  that  condition,  that  there  is  no 
childishness  in  its  dwellings.  Poor  people,  said  a  sen- 
sible old  nurse  to  us  once,  do  not  bring  up  their  chil- 
dren ;  they  drag  them  up.  The  little  careless  darling 
of  the  wealthier  nursery,  in  their  hovel  is  transformed 
betimes  into  a  premature  reflecting  person.  No  one 
has  time  to  dandle  it,  no  one  thinks  it  worth  while  to 
coax  it,  to  soothe  it,  to  toss  it  up  and  down,  to  humor 
it.  There  is  none  to  kiss  away  its  tears.  If  it  cries, 
it  can  only  be  beaten.  It  has  been  prettily  said,  that 
"  a  babe  is  fed  with  milk  and  praise."  But  the  ali- 
ment of  this  poor  babe  was  thin,  unnourishing  ;  the 
return  to  its  little  baby-tricks,  and  efforts  to  engage 
attention,  bitter  ceaseless  objurgation.  It  never  had 
a  toy,  or  knew  what  a  coi'al  meant.  It  grew  up  with- 
out the  lullaby  of  nurses  ;  it  was  a  stranger  to  the  pa- 
tient fondle,  the  hushing  caress,  the  attracting  novelty, 
the  costlier  plaything,  or  the  cheaper  off-hand  contri- 
vance to  divert  the  child  ;  the  prattled  nonsense  (best 
sense  to  it),  the  wise  impertinences,  the  wholesome 
Vies,  the  apt  story  interposed,  that  puts  a  stop  to  present 
sufferings,  and  awakens  the  passions  of  young  wonder. 


POPULAR   FALLACIES.  445 

It  was  never  suno;  to,  —  no  one  ever  told  to  it  a  tale 
of  the  nursery.  It  was  dragged  up,  to  li\'e  or  to  die 
as  it  happened.  It  had  no  young  dreams.  It  broke 
at  once  into  the  iron  realities  of  life.  A  child  exists 
not  for  the  very  poor  as  any  object  of  dalliance  ;  it  is 
only  another  mouth  to  be  fed,  a  pair  of  little  hands  to 
be  betimes  inured  to  labor.  It  is  the  rival,  till  it  can  be 
the  cooperator  for  food  with  the  parent.  It  is  never  liis 
mirth,  his  diversion,  his  solace ;  it  never  makes  him 
young  again,  with  recalling  his  young  times.  The 
children  of  the  very  poor  have  no  young  times.  It 
makes  the  very  heart  to  bleed  to  overhear  the  casual 
street-talk  between  a  poor  woman  and  her  little  girl, 
a  woman  of  the  better  sort  of  poor,  in  a  condition 
rather  above  the  squalid  beings  which  we  have  been 
contemplating.  It  is  not  of  toys,  of  nursery  books, 
of  summer  holidays  (fitting  that  age)  ;  of  the  promised 
sight,  or  play  ;  of  praised  sufficiency  at  school.  It  is 
of  mangling  and  clear-starching,  of  the  price  of  coals, 
or  of  potatoes.  The  questions  of  the  child,  that  should 
be  the  very  outpourings  of  cui'iosity  in  idleness,  are 
marked  with  forecast  and  melancholy  providence.  It 
has  come  to  be  a  woman  —  before  it  was  a  child.  It 
has  learned  to  go  to  market ;  it  chaffers,  it  haggles,  it 
envies,  it  murmurs  ;  it  is  knowing,  acute,  sharpened ; 
it  never  prattles.  Had  we  not  reason  to  say,  that  the 
home  of  the  very  poor  is  no  home  ? 

There  is  yet  another  home,  which  we  are  constrained 
to  deny  to  be  one.  It  has  a  larder,  which  the  home 
of  the  poor  man  wants  ;  its  fireside  conveniences,  of 
which  the  poor  dream  not.  But  with  all  this,  it  is  no 
iiome.  It  is  —  the  house  of  a  man  that  is  infested 
writh  many  visitors.     May  we  be- branded  for  the  veri- 


446  POPULAR   FALLACIES. 

est  churl,  if  we  deny  our  heart  to  the  many  noblo- 
hearted  fi-iends  that  at  tmies  exchange  their  dwelhng 
for  our  poor  roof!  It  is  not  of  guests  that  we  com- 
plain, but  of  endless,  purposeless  visitants  ;  droppers 
in,  as  they  are  called.  We  sometimes  wonder  from 
what  sky  they  fall.  It  is  the  veiy  error  of  the  posi- 
tion of  our  lodging  ;  its  horoscopy  was  ill-calculated, 
being  just  situate  in  a  medium  —  a  plaguy  suburban 
midspace  —  fitted  to  catch  idlers  from  town  or  country. 
We  are  older  than  we  were,  and  age  is  easily  put  out 
of  its  way.  We  have  fewer  sands  in  our  glass  to 
reckon  upon,  and  we  cannot  brook  to  see  them  drop  in 
endlessly  succeeding  impertinences.  At  our  time  of 
life,  to  be  alone  sometimes  is  as  needful  as  sleep.  It 
is  the  refreshing  sleep  of  the  day.  The  growing  in- 
firmities of  age  manifest  themselves  in  nothing  more 
strongly  than  in  an  inveterate  dislike  of  interruption. 
The  thing  which  we  are  doing,  we  wish  to  be  permitted 
to  do.  We  have  neither  much  knowledge  nor  devices ; 
but  there  are  fewer  in  the  place  to  which  we  hasten. 
We  are  not  willingly  put  out  of  our  way,  even  at  a 
game  of  ninepins.  While  youth  was,  we  had  vast  re- 
versions in  time  future;  we  are  reduced  to  a  present 
pittance,  and  obliged  to  economize  in  that  article.  We 
bleed  away  our  moments  now  as  hardly  as  our  ducats. 
We  cannot  bear  to  have  our  thin  wardrobe  eaten  and 
ft'etted  into  by  moths.  We  are  willing  to  barter  our 
good  time  with  a  fi'iend,  who  gives  us  in  exchange  his 
own.  Herein  is  the  distinction  between  the  genuine 
guest  and  the  visitant.  This  latter  takes  your  good 
time,  and  gives  you  his  bad  in  exchange.  The  guest  is 
domestic  to  you  as  your  good  cat,  or  household  bird  ; 
the  visita)it  is  your  fly,  that  flaps  m  at  your  window. 


POPULAR   FALLACIES.  4'l7 

and  out  again,  leaving  nothing  but  a  sense  of  disturb- 
ance, and  victuals  spoiled.  The  inferior  functions  of 
life  begin  to  move  heavily.  We  cannot  concoct  our 
food  with  interruptions.  Our  chief  meal,  to  be  nutri 
tive,  must  be  solitary.  With  difficulty  we  can  eat  be- 
fore a  guest ;  and  never  understood  what  the  relish  of 
public  feasting  meant.  Meats  have  no  sapor,  nor  diges- 
tion fair  play,  in  a  crowd.  The  unexpected  coming  in 
of  a  visitant  stops  the  machine.  There  is  a  punctual 
generation  who  time  their  calls  to  the  precise  com 
mencement  of  your  dinner-hour  —  not  to  eat  —  but  to 
see  you  eat.  Our  knife  and  fork  drop  instinctively,  and 
we  feel  that  we  have  swallowed  our  latest  morsel. 
Others  again  show  their  genius,  as  we  have  said,  in 
knocking  the  moment  you  have  just  sat  down  to  a 
book.  They  have  a  peculiar  compassionate  sneer,  with 
which  they  "  hope  that  they  do  not  interrupt  your 
studies."  Though  they  flutter  off  the  next  moment,  to 
carry  their  impertinences  to  the  nearest  student  that 
they  can  call  tlieir  friend,  the  tone  of  the  book  is 
spoihid  ;  we  shut  the  leaves,  and,  with  Dante's  lovers, 
read  no  more  that  day.  It  were  well  if  the  effect  of 
intrusion  were  simply  coextensive  with  its  presence, 
but  it  mars  all  the  good  hours  afterwards.  These 
scratches  in  appearance  leave  an  orifice  that  closes  not 
hastily.  "  It  is  a  prostitution  of  the  bravery  of  friend- 
ship," says  worthy  Bishop  Taylor,  "  to  spend  it  u{)on 
impertinent  people,  who  are,  it  may  be,  loads  to  their 
families,  but  can  never  ease  my  loads."  Tliis  is  the 
secret  of  their  gaddings,  their  visits,  and  morning  calls. 
They  too  have  homes,  which  are  —  no  homes. 


448  POPULAR  FALLACIES. 


THAT  YOU  MUST  LOVE  ME  AND  LOVE  MY  DOG. 

*•  Good  sir,  or  madam  —  as  it  may  be  —  we  most 
willingly  embrace  the  offer  of  your  friendship.  We 
have  long  known  your  excellent  qualities.  We  have 
wished  to  have  you  nearer  to  us ;  to  hold  you  within 
the  very  innermost  fold  of  our  heart.  We  can  have 
no  reserve  towards  a  person  of  your  open  and  noble 
nature.  The  frankness  of  your  humor  suits  us  ex- 
actly. We  have  been  long  looking  for  such  a  fi-iend. 
Quick, — let  us  disburden  our  troubles  into  each  other's 
bosom,  <  —  let  us  make  our  single  joys  shine  by  redupli- 
cation, —  But  yap^  yap^  yap  !  what  is  this  confounded 
cur  ?  he  has  fastened  his  tooth,  which  is  none  of  the 
bluntest,  just  in  the  fleshy  part  of  my  leg." 

"  It  is  my  dog,  sir.  You  must  love  him  for  my  sake. 
Here,  Test  —  Test—  Test !  " 

"  But  he  has  bitten  me." 

"  A}^,  that  he  is  apt  to  do,  till  you  are  better  ac- 
quainted with  him.  I  have  had  liim  three  years.  He 
never  bites  me." 

Yap^  yap^  yap  ! —  "  He  is  at  it  again." 

"  O,  sir,  you  must  not  kick  him.  He  does  not  like 
LO  be  kicked.  I  expect  my  dog  to  be  treated  with  all 
the,  respect  due  to  myself." 

"  But  do  you  always  take  him  out  with  you,  when 
f  ou  go  a  friendship-hunting  ?  " 

"  Invariably.  'Tis  the  sweetest,  prettiest,  best-con- 
ditioned animal.  I  call  him  my  test  —  tlie  touchstone 
by  which  to  try  a  fi-iend.  No  one  can  properly  be  said 
to  love  me,  who  does  not  love  him." 

"  Excuse   us,    dear  sir  —  or  madam,    aforesaid  —  if 


POl'ULAK    FALLACIES.  449 

a|ion  further  consideration  we  are  obliged  to  decline 
the  otherwise  invaluable  offer  of  your  friendship.  We 
do  not  like  dogs." 

"  Mighty  well,  sir,  —  you  know  the  conditions,  — 
you  may  have  worse  offers.     Come  along,  Test." 

The  above  dialogue  is  not  so  imaginary,  but  that,  in 
the  intercourse  of  life,  we  have  had  frequent  occasions 
of  breaking  off  an  agreeable  intimacy  by  reason  of 
these  canine  appendages.  They  do  not  always  come 
in  the  shape  of  dogs ;  they  sometimes  wear  the  more 
plausible  and  human  character  of  kinsfulk,  near  ac- 
quaintances, my  friend's  friend,  his  partner,  his  wife, 
or  his  children.  We  could  never  yet  form  a  friend- 
ship, —  not  to  speak  of  more  delicate  correspondence,  — 
however  much  to  our  taste,  without  the  intervention 
of  some  third  anomaly,  some  impertinent  clog  affixed  to 
the  relation  —  the  understood  dog  in  the  proverb.  The 
good  things  of  life  are  not  to  be  had  singly,  but  come 
to  us  with  a  mixture,  —  like  a  schoolboy's  holiday,  with 
a  task  affixed  to  the  tail  of  it.     What  a  delightful  com- 

panion  is ,   if  he   did  not  always    bring  his    tall 

cousin  with  him  !  He  seems  to  grow  with  him ;  like 
some  of  those  double  births  which  we  remember  to 
have  read  of  with  such  wonder  and  delij>;ht  in  the  old 
"Athenian  Oracle,"  where  Swift  commenced  author 
by  writing  Pindaric  Odes  (what  a  beginning  for  him  !) 
upon  Sir  William  Temple.  There  is  the  picture  of 
the  brother,  with  the  little  brother  peeping  out  at  his 
shoulder;    a  species  of  fraternity,  which  we  have  no 

name  of  kin  close  enough  to  comprehend.     When 

comes,  poking  in  his  head  and  shoulder  ii\to  your  room, 
as  if  to  feel  his  entry,  you  think,  surely  you  have  now 
got  him  to  yourself,  —  what  a  three   hours'  chat  we 


450  POPULAR   FALLACIES. 

shall  have  !  —  but  ever  in  the  haunch  of  him,  and  be- 
fore his  diffident  body  is  well  disclosed  in  your  apart- 
ment, appears  the  haunting  shadow  of  the  cousin, 
overpeering  his  modest  kinsman,  and  sure  to  overlay 
the  expected  good  talk  with  his  insufferable  procerity 
of  stature,  and  uncorresponding  dwarfishness  of  obser- 
vation. Misfortunes  seldom  come  alone.  'Tis  hard 
when  a  blessing  comes  accompanied.  Cannot  we  like 
Sempronia,  without  sitting  down  to  chess  with  her 
eternal  brother  ?  or  know  Sulpicia,  without  knowing 
all  the  round  of  her  card-playing  relations  ?  —  must  my 
friend's  brethren  of  necessity  be  mine  also  ?  must  we 
be  hand  and  glove  with  Dick  Selby  the  parson,  or  Jack 
Selby  the  caHco-printer,  because  W.  S.,  who  is  neither, 
but  a  ripe  wit  and  a  critic,  has  the  misfortune  to  claim  a 
common  parentage  with  them  ?  Let  him  lay  down  his 
brothers  ;  and  'tis  odds  but  we  will  cast  him  in  a  pair 
of  ours  (we  have  a  superflux)  to  balance  the  conces- 
sion. Let  F.  H.  lay  down  his  garrulous  uncle  ;  and 
Honorius  dismiss  his  vapid  wife,  and  superfluous  estab- 
lishment of  six  boys  ;  things  between  boy  and  manhood 
—  too  ripe  for  play,  too  raw  for  conversation  —  that 
come  in,  impudently  staring  their  father's  old  friend 
out  of  countenance ;  and  will  neither  aid,  nor  let  alone, 
the  conference;  that  we  may  once  more  meet  upon 
equal  terms,  as  we  were  wont  to  do  in  the  disengaged 
state  of  bachelorhood. 

It  is  well  if  your  friend,  or  mistress,  be  cont  jnt  witli 
these  canicular  probations.  Few  young  ladies  but  in 
this  sense  keep  a  dog.  But  when  Rutilia  hounds  at 
you  her  tiger  aunt ;  or  Ruspina  expects  you  to  cherish 
and  fondle  her  viper  sister,  whom  she  has  preposter- 
ously taken  into  her  bosom,  to  tiy  stinging  conclusions 


rOPULAR   FALLACIES.  451 

upon  your  constancy  ;  tliey  must  not  ccmplain  if  the 
house  be  rather  thin  of"  suitors.  Scylla  must  have 
broken  off  many  excellent  matches  in  her  time,  if  she 
insisted  upon  all,  that  loved  her,  loving  her  dogs  also. 

An  excellent  story  to  tliis  moral  is  told  of  JMerry,  of 
Delia  Cruscan  memory.  In  tender  youth  he  loved  and 
courted  a  modest  appanage  to  the  Opera,  —  in  truth  a 
dancer,  —  who  had  won  him  by  the  artless  contrast 
between  her  manners  and  situation.  She  seemed  to 
him  a  native  violet,  that  had  been  transplanted  by 
some  rude  accident  into  that  exotic  and  artificial  hot- 
bed. Nor,  in  truth,  was  she  less  genuine  and  sincere 
than  she  appeared  to  him.  He  wooed  and  won  this 
flower.  Only  for  appearance'  sake,  and  for  due  honor 
to  the  bride's  relations,  she  craved  that  she  might  have 
the  attendance  of  her  friends  and  kindred  at  the  ap- 
proaching solemnity.  The  request  was  too  amiable  not 
to  be  conceded  ;  and  in  this  solicitude  for  conciliating 
the  good-will  of  mere  relations,  he  found  a  presage  of 
her  superior  attentions  to  himself,  when  the  golden 
shaft  should  have  "  killed  the  flock  of  all  affections 
else."  The  morning  came ;  and  at  the  Star  and 
Garter,  Richmond,  —  the  place  appointed  for  the  break- 
fasting, —  accompanied  with  one  English  friend,  he  im- 
patiently awaited  what  reinforcements  the  bride  should 
bring  to  grace  the  ceremony.  A  rich  muster  she  had 
made.  They  came  in  six  coaches  —  the  whole  corps 
du  ballet  —  French,  Italian,  men,  and  women.  J\Ion- 
sieur  de  B.,  the  famous  pirouetter  of  the  day,  led  his 
fair  spouse,  but  craggy,  from  the  banks  of  the  Seine. 
The  Prima  Donna  "iiad  sent  her  excuse.  But  the  first 
and  second  Buffa  were  there ;  and  Signor  Sc — ,  and 
Signora  Ch — ,  and  Madame  V — ,  with  a  countless  cav- 


452  POPULAR   FALLACIES. 

alcade  besides  of  chorusers,  figurantes  !  at  the  sight  of 
whom  Meny  afterwards  declared,  that  "  then  for  the 
first  time  it  struck  him  seriously,  that  he  was  about  to 
marry — a  dancer."  But  there  was  no  help  for  it. 
Besides,  it  was  her  day  ;  these  were,  in  fact,  her  friends 
and  kinsfolk.  The  assemblage,  though  whimsical,  was 
all  very  natural.  But  when  the  bride  —  handing  out 
of  the  last  coach  a  still  more  extraordinary  figure  than 
the  rest  —  presented  to  him  as  her  father  —  the  gen- 
tleman that  was  to  give  her  away  —  no  less  a  person 
than  Signor  Delpini  himself — with  a  sort  of  pride,  as 
much  as  to  say.  See  what  I  have  brought  to  do  us 
honor  !  —  the  thought  of  so  extraordinary  a  paternity 
quite  overcame  him ;  and  slipping  away  under  some 
pretence  from  the  bride  and  her  motley  adherents,  poor 
Merry  took  horse  from  the  backyard  to  the  nearest 
sea-coast  from  which,  shipping  himself  to  America,  he 
shortly  after  consoled  himself  with  a  more  congenial 
match  in  the  person  of  Miss  Brunton  ;  relieved  from 
his  intended  clown  father,  and  a  bevy  of  painted  buffas 
for  bridemaids. 


THAT    WE    SHOULD    RISE    WITH    THE    LARK. 

At  what  precise  minute  that  little  airy  musician  doffs 
his  night  gear,  and  prepares  to  tune  up  his  unseason- 
able matins,  Ave  are  not  naturalists  enough  to  deter- 
mine. But  for  a  mere  human  gentleman  —  that  has 
no  orchestra  business  to  call  him  from  his  warm  bed 
to  such  preposterous  exercises  —  we  take  ten,  or  half 
after  ten,  (eleven,  of  course,  during  this  Christmas  sol- 
stice,) to  be  the  very  earliest  hour  at  which  he  can 
begin  to  think  of  abandoning  his  pillow.     To  think  of 


POPULAR   FALLACIES.  453 

It,  we  say  ;  for  to  do  it  in  earnest  requires  another  half 
hour's  good  consideration.  Not  but  there  are  pretty 
sunrisings,  as  we  are  told,  and  such  like  gauds,  abroad 
in  the  world,  in  summer-time  especially,  some  hours 
before  what  we  have  assigned  ;  which  a  gentleman  may 
see,  as  they  say,  only  for  getting  up.  But  having  been 
tempted  once  or  twice,  in  earlier  life,  to  assist  at  those 
ceremonies,  we  confess  our  curiosity  abated.  We  are 
no  lono;er  ambitious  of  beino;  the  sun's  courtiers,  tc 
attend  at  his  morning  levees.  We  hold  the  good  hours 
of  the  dawn  too  sacred  to  waste  them  upon  such  ob- 
servances ;  which  have  in  them,  besides,  something 
Pagan  and  Persic.  To  say  truth,  we  never  anticipated 
our  usual  hour,  or  got  up  with  the  sun  (as  'tis  called), 
to  go  a  journey,  or  upon  a  foolish  whole  day's  pleasur- 
ing, but  we  suffered  for  it  all  the  long  hours  after  in 
listlessness  and  headaches  ;  Nature  herself  sufficiently 
declaring  her  sense  of  our  presumption  in  aspiring  to 
regulate  our  frail  waking  courses  by  the  measures  of 
that  celestial  and  sleepless  traveller.  We  deny  not 
that  there  is  something  sprightly  and  vigorous,  at  the 
outset  especially,  in  these  break-of-day  excursions.  It 
is  flattering  to  get  the  start  of  a  lazy  world  ;  to  con- 
quer death  by  proxy  in  his  image.  But  the  seeds  of 
sleep  and  mortality  are  in  vis ;  and  we  pay  usually,  in 
strange  qualms  before  night  falls,  the  penalty  of  the 
unnatural  inversion.  Therefore,  while  the  busy  part 
of  mankind  are  fast  huddling  on  their  clothes,  are  al- 
ready up  and  about  their  occupations,  content  to  have 
swallowed  their  sleep  by  wholesale ;  we  choose  to 
linger  a-bcd,  and  digest  our  dreams.  It  is  the  very 
time  to  recombine  the  Avandering  images,  which  night 
in  a  confused  mass  presented  ;  to  snatch  them  fi-om  for- 


454  POPULAR   FALLACIES. 

getftiliiess  ;  to  shape  and  mould  tliem.  Some  people 
have  no  good  of  their  dreams.  Like  fast  feeders,  they 
gulp  them  too  grossly,  to  taste  them  curiously.  We 
love  to  chew  the  cud  of  a  foregone  vision  ;  to  collect 
the  scattered  rays  of  a  brighter  phantasm,  or  act  over 
again,  with  firmer  nerves,  the  sadder  nocturnal  trage- 
dies :  to  drag;  into  daylio;ht  a  struo-glincr  and  half-van- 
ishino;  nightmare ;  to  handle  and  examine  the  terrors, 
or  the  airy  solaces.  We  have  too  much  respect  for 
these  spiritual  communications  to  let  them  go  so  lightly. 
We  are  not  so  stupid,  or  so  careless  as  that  Imperial 
forgetter  of  his  dreams,  that  we  should  need  a  seer  to 
remind  us  of  the  form  of  them.  They  seem  to  us  to 
have  as  much  significance  as  our  waking  concerns: 
or  rather  to  import  us  more  nearly,  as  more  nearly 
we  approach  by  years  to  the  shadowy  world,  whither 
we  are  hastening.  We  have  shaken  hands  with  the 
world's  business  ;  we  have  done  with  it ;  we  have  dis- 
charged ourself  of  it.  Why  should  we  get  up  ?  we 
have  neither  suit  to  solicit,  nor  affairs  to  manage.  The 
drama  has  shut  in  upon  us  at  the  fourth  act.  We  have 
nothing  here  to  expect,  but  in  a  short  time  a  sick  bed, 
and  a  dismissal.  We  delight  to  anticipate  death  by 
such  shadows  as  night  affords.  We  are  already  half 
acquainted  with  ghosts.  We  were  never  much  in  the 
world.  Disappointment  early  stiTick  a  dark  veil  be- 
tween us  and  its  dazzling  illusions.  Our  spirits  showed 
gray  before  our  hairs.  The  mighty  changes  of  the 
world  already  appear  as  but  the  vain  stuff  out  of  which 
dramas  are  composed.  We  have  asked  no  more  of  life 
than  what  the  mimic  images  in  playhouses  present  us 
with.  Even  those  types  have  waxed  fainter.  Our 
clock  appears  to  have  struck.      We   are  supebaknu- 


POPULAR   FALLACIES.  455 

ATED.  In  this  dearth  of  mundane  satisfaction,  we  con- 
tract politic  alliances  with  shadows.  It  is  good  to  have 
friends  at  court.  The  abstracted  media  of  dreams  seem 
no  ill  introduction  to  that  spiritual  presence,  upon 
which,  in  no  long  time,  we  expect  to  be  thrown.  We 
are  trying  to  know  a  little  of  the  usages  of  that  colony ; 
to  learn  the  language,  and  the  faces  we  shall  meet  with 
there,  that  we  may  be  the  less  awkward  at  our  first 
coming  among  them.  We  willingly  call  a  phantom 
our  fellow,  as  knowing  we  shall  soon  be  of  their  dark 
companionship.  Therefore,  we  cherish  dreams.  We 
try  to  spell  in  them  the  alphabet  of  the  invisible  world ; 
and  think  we  know  already,  how  it  shall  be  with  us. 
Those  uncouth  shapes,  which,  while  we  clung  to  flesh 
and  blood,  affnghted  us,  have  become  familiar.  We 
feel  attenuated  into  their  meagre  essences,  and  have 
given  the  hand  of  half-way  approach  to  incorporeal 
being.  We  once  thought  life  to  be  something  ;  but 
it  has  unaccountably  fallen  from  us  before  its  time. 
Therefore  we  choose  to  dally  with  visions.  The  sun 
has  no  purposes  of  ours  to  light  us  to.  Why  should 
we  get  up  ? 

XV. 

THAT   WE    SHOULD    LIE    DOWN    WITH   THE    LAMB. 

We  could  never  quite  understand  the  philosophy  of 
this  arrangement,  or  the  wisdom  of  our  ancestors  in 
sending  us  for  instruction  to  these  woolly  bedfellows. 
A  sheep,  when  it  is  dark,  has  nothing  to  do  but  to  shut 
his  silly  eyes,  and  sleep  if  he  can.  Man  found  out  long 
sixes,  —  Hail,  candle-light!  without  disparagement  to 
Bun  or  moon,  the  kindliest  luminary  of  the  three,  —  if 
^e  may  not  rather  style  thee  their  radiant  deputy,  mild 


406  POPULAR   FALLACILS. 

viceroy  of  the  moon !  —  We  love  to  read,  talk,  sit 
silent,  eat,  drink,  sleep,  by  candle-light.  They  are 
everybody's  sun  and  moon.  This  is  our  peculiar  and 
household  planet.  Wanting  it,  what  savage  unsocial 
nights  must  our  ancestors  have  spent,  wintering  in 
caves  and  unillumined  fastnesses  !  They  must  have 
lain  about  and  grumbled  at  one  anotlier  in  the  dark. 
What  repartees  could  have  passed,  when  you  must 
have  felt  about  for  a  smile,  and  handled  a  neighbor's 
cheek  to  be  sure  that  he  understood  it  ?  This  accounts 
for  the  seriousness  of  the  elder  poetry.  It  has  a  sombre 
cast  (try  Hesiod  or  Ossian),  derived  from  the  tradition 
of  those  unlanterned  nights.  Jokes  came  in  with 
candles.  We  wonder  how  they  saw  to  pick  up  a  pin, 
if  they  had  any.  How  did  they  sup  ?  what  a  melange 
of  chance  carving  they  must  have  made  of  it !  —  here 
one  had  got  a  leg  of  a  goat,  when  he  wanted  a  horse's 
shoulder  —  there  another  had  dipped  his  scooped  palm 
in  a  kid-skin  of  wild  honey,  when  he  meditated  right 
mare's  milk.  There  is  neither  ffood  eatino;  nor  drink- 
ing  in  fresco.  Who,  even  in  these  civilized  times,  has 
never  experienced  this,  when  at  some  economic  table 
he  has  commenced  dining  after  dusk,  and  waited  for 
the  flavor  till  the  lights  came  ?  The  senses  absolutely 
give  and  take-  reciprocally.  Can  you  tell  pork  from 
veal  in  the  dark  ?  or  distinguish  Sherris  from  pure 
Malaga?  Take  away  the  candle  from  the  smoking 
man  ;  by  the  glimmering  of  the  left  ashes,  he  knows 
that  he  is  still  smoking,  but  he  knows  it  only  by 
an  inference ;  till  the  restored  light,  coming  in  aid 
of  the  olfactories,  reveals  to  both  senses  the  ftill 
aroma.  Then  how  he  redoubles  his  puffs  !  how  he 
burnishes !  —  There    is    absolutely   no    such    thing   as 


POPULAR   FALLACIES.  457 

reading  but  by  a  candle.  We  have  tried  the  affecta- 
tion of  a  book  at  noonday  in  gardens,  and  in  sultiy 
arbors  ;  but  it  was  labor  thrown  away.  Those  gay 
motes  in  the  beam  come  about  you,  hovering  and  teas- 
ing, like  so  many  coquettes,  that  will  have  you  all  to 
their  self,  and  are  jealous  of  your  abstractions.  By  the 
midnight  taper,  the  writer  digests  his  meditations.  B}- 
the  same  light  we  must  approach  to  their  perusal,  if  we 
would  catch  the  flame,  the  odor.  It  is  a  mockery,  all 
that  is  reported  of  the  influential  Phoebus.  No  true 
poem  ever  owed  its  birth  to  the  sun's  light.  They  are 
abstracted  works  — 

Things  that  were  born,  when  none  but  the  still  night, 
And  his  dumb  candle,  saw  his  pinching  throes. 

Marry,  daylight  —  daylight  might  furnish  the  images, 
the  crude  material ;  but  for  the  fine  shapings,  the  true 
turning  and  filing  (as  mine  author  hath  it),  they  must 
be  content  to  hold  their  inspiration  of  the  candle.  The 
mild  internal  light,  that  reveals  them,  like  fires  on  the 
domestic  hearth,  goes  out  in  the  sunshine.  Night  and 
=5ilence  call  out  the  starry  fancies.  Milton's  Morning 
Hymn  in  Paradise,  we  would  hold  a  good  wager,  was 
penned  at  midnight ;  and  Taylor's  rich  description  of  a 
svmrise  smells  decidedly  of  the  taper.  Even  ourself,  in 
these  our  humbler  lucubrations,  tune  our  best-measured 
cadences  (Prose  has  her  cadences)  not  unfrequently  to 
the  charm  of  the  drowsier  watchman,  "  blessing  the 
doors;"  or  the  wild  sweep  of  winds  at  midnight. 
Even  now  a  loftier  speculation  than  we  have  yet  at- 
tempted, courts  our  endeavors.  We  would  indite 
something  about  the  Solar  System.  —  Betty ^  bring  the 
candleK. 

VOL.   Til.  29* 


458  POPULAR  FALLACIES. 


THAT   A    SULKY    TEMPER    IS    A    MISFORTITNE. 

We  grant  that  it  is,  and  a  very  serious  one  —  to  & 
man's  friends,  and  to  all  that  have  to  do  with  him ;  but 
whether  the  condition  of  the  man  himself  is  so  much  to 
be  deplored,  may  admit  of  a  question.  We  can  speak 
a  little  to  it,  being  ourself  but  lately  recovered  —  we 
whisper  it  in  confidence,  reader  —  out  of  a  long  and 
desperate  fit  of  the  sullens.  Was  the  cure  a  blessing  ? 
The  conviction  which  wrought  it,  came  too  clearly  to 
leave  a  scruple  of  the  fanciful  injuries  —  for  they  were 
mere  fancies — which  had  provoked  the  humor.  But 
the  humor  itself  was  too  self-pleasmg,  while  it  lasted  — 
we  know  how  bare  we  lay  ourself  in  the  confession  — 
to  be  abandoned  all  at  once  with  the  grounds  of  it. 
We  still  brood  over  wrongs  which  we  know  to  have 

been  imaginary ;  and  for  our  old  acquaintance  N , 

whom  we  find  to  have  been  a  truer  friend  than  we  took 
him  for,  we  substitute  some  phantom  —  a  Caius  or  a 
Titius  —  as  like  him  as  we  dare  to  form  it,  to  wreak 
our  yet  unsatisfied  resentments  on.  It  is  mortifying  to 
fall  at  once  from  the  pinnacle  of  neglect ;  to  forego  the 
idea  of  having  been  ill-used  and  contumaciously  treated, 
by  an  old  friend.  The  first  thing  to  aggrandize  a  man 
in  his  own  conceit,  is  to  conceive  of  himself  as  neg- 
lected. There  let  liim  fix  if  he  can.  To  undeceive 
him  is  to  deprive  him  of  the  most  tickling  mOrsel 
within  the  range  of  self-complacency.  No  flattery  can 
come  near  it.  Happy  is  he  who  suspects  his  friend  of 
an  injustice ;  but  supremely  blest,  who  thinks  all  his 
friends  in  a  :onspiracy  to  depress  and  undervalue  him. 


POPULAR   FALL\CIES.  459 

There  is  a  pleasure  (we  sing  not  to  the  profane^  far 
beyond  the  reach  of  all  that  the  world  counts  joy — a 
deep,  enduring  satisfaction  in  the  depths,  where  the 
superficial  seek  it  not,  of  discontent.  Were  we  to 
recite  one  half  of  this  mysteiy,  —  which  we  were  let 
into  by  our  late  dissatisfaction,  all  the  world  would  be 
in  love  with  disrespect ;  we  should  wear  a  slight  for  a 
bracelet,  and  neglects  and  contumacies  would  be  the 
only  matter  for  courtship.  Unlike  to  that  mysterious 
book  in  the  Apocalypse,  the  study  of  this  mystery  is 
unpalatable  only  in  the  commencement.  The  first 
sting  of  a  suspicion  is  grievous  ;  but  wait  —  out  of  that 
wound,  which  to  flesh  and  blood  seemed  so  difficult, 
there  is  balm  and  honey  to  be  extracted.  Your  friend 
passed  you  on  such  or  such  a  day,  —  having  in  his  com- 
pany one  that  you  conceived  worse  than  ambiguously 
disposed  towards  you,  —  passed  you  in  the  street  with- 
out notice.  To  be  sure  he  is  something  short-sighted  ; 
and  it  was  in  your  power  to  have  accosted  him.  But 
facts  and  sane  inferences  are  trifles  to  a  true  adept  in 
the  science  of  dissatisfaction.     He  must  have  seen  you ; 

and  S ,  who  was  with  him,  must  have   been   the 

cause  of  the  contempt.  It  galls  you  and  well  it  may. 
But  have  patience.  Go  home,  and  make  the  worst  of 
it,  and  you  are  a  made  man  from  this  time.  Shut 
yourself  up,  and  —  rejecting,  as  an  enemy  to  your 
peace,  every  whispering  suggestion  that  but  insinuates 
there  may  be  a  mistake  —  reflect  seriously  upon  the 
many  lesser  instances  which  you  had  begun  to  per- 
ceive, in  proof  of  your  ftnend's  disaffection  towards  you. 
None  of  them  singly  was  much  to  the  pui'pose,  but  the 
aggregate  weight  is  positive ;    and  you  have  this  last 


460  POPULAR  FALLACIES. 

affront  to  clench  them.     Thus  far  the  process  is  any- 
thing but  agreeable.     But  now  to  your  relief  comes  in 
the  comparative  faculty.     You  conjure  up  all  the  kind 
feelings  you  have  had  for  your  friend  ;   what  you  have 
been  to  him,  and  what  you  would  have  been  to  him,  if 
he  would  have  suffered  you ;  how  you  defended  him  in 
this  or  that  place  ;  and  his  good  name  —  his  literary 
reputation,  and  so  forth,  was  always  dearer  to  you  than 
your  own  !     Your  heart,  spite  of  itself,  yearns  towards 
him.     You  could  weep  tears  of  blood  but  for  a  restrain- 
ing pride.     How  say  you  !    do  you  not  yet  begin  to 
apprehend  a  comfort?  some  allay  of  sweetness  in  the 
bitter  waters  ?     Stop  not  here,  nor  penuriously  cheat 
yourself   of  your  reversions.      You    ai-e   on   vantage 
ground.     Enlarge  your  speculations,  and  take  in  the 
rest  of  your  friends,  as  a  spark  kindles  more  sparks. 
Was  there  one  among  them,  who  has  not  to  you  proved 
hollow,  false,  slippery  as  water  ?     Begin  to  think  thai 
the  relation  itself  is  inconsistent  with  mortality.     That 
the  very  idea  of  friendship,  with  its  component  parts,  as 
honor,   fidelity,   steadiness,   exists    but   in  your   single 
bosom.     Image  yourself  to  yourself,  as  the  only  pos- 
sible friend  in  a  world  incapable  of  that  communion. 
Now  the  gloom  thickens.     The  little  star  of  self-love 
twinkles,    that    is    to    encourage    you    through    deeper 
glooms  than  this.      You  are  not  yet  at  the  half  ])oint  of 
your  elevation.      You  are   not  yet,   believe  me,   half 
sidky  enough.     Adverting  to  tlie  world  in  general,  (as 
these  circles  in  the  mind  will  spread  to  infinity,)  reflect 
with  what  strange  injustice  you  have  been  treated  in 
quarters  where  (setting  gratitude  and  the  expectation 
of  friendly  returns  aside  as  chimeras)  you  pretended  no 


POfUl^AR    FALLACIES.  461 

claim  beyond  justice,  the  naked  due  of  all  men.  Think 
the  very  idea  of  right  and  fit  fled  from  the  earth,  or 
your  breast  the  solitary  receptacle  of  it,  till  you  have 
swelled  yourself  into  at  least  one  hemisphere ;  the  other 
being  the  vast  Arabia  Stony  of  your  friends  and  the 
world  aforesaid.  To  grow  bigger  every  moment  in 
your  own  conceit,  and  the  world  to  lessen;  to  deify 
yourself  at  the  expense  of  your  species ;  to  judge  the 
world,  —  this  is  the  acme  and  supreme  point  of  your 
mystery,  —  these  the  true  Pleasures  of  Sulkiness. 
We  profess  no  more  of  this  grand  secret  than  what 
ourself  experimented  on  one  rainy  afternoon  in  the  last 
week,  sulking  in  our  study.  We  had  proceeded  to  the 
penultimate  point,  at  which  the  true  adept  seldom 
stops,  where  the  consideration  of  benefit  forgot  is  about 
to  merge  in  the  meditation  of  general  injustice — when 
a  knock  at  the  door  was  followed  by  the  entrance  of 
the  very  friend  whose  not  seemg  of  us  in  the  morning 
(for  we  will  now  confess  tlie  case  our  own,)  an  acci 
dental  oversight,  had  given  rise  to  so  much  agreeable 
generalization !  To  mortify  us  still  more,  and  take 
down  the  whole  flattering  superstructure  which  jn-ide 
had  piled  upon  neglect,  he  had  brought  in  his  hand  the 

identical  S ,  in  whose  favor  we  had  suspected  him 

of  the  contumacy.  Asseverations  were  needless,  where 
the  ft-ank  manner  of  them  both  was  convictive  of  the 
injurious  nature  of  the  suspicion.  We  fancied  that 
they  perceived  our  embarrassment ;  but  were  too  proud, 
or  something  else,  to  confess  to  the  secret  of  it.  We 
had  been  but  too  lately  in  the  condition  of  the  noble 
patient  in  Argos  :  — 

Qui  96  credebat  miros  audiro  tragcados. 
In  vacuo  Isetus  aessor  plausoraue  theatro  — 


i62  POPULAE   FALLACIES. 

and  could  have  exclaimed  with  equal   reason  against 
the  friendly  hands  that  cured  us  — 

Pol,  me  occidistis,  amici, 
Non  servastis,  ait;  cui  sic  extorta  voluptas, 
Et  demptus  per  vim  mentis  gratissimus  erroT 


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